A present to the future
by Bloodprince1234
Summary: All is well in Heatherfield and for the Guardians, until a new, sinister, masked group appears. What are their goals? Who are they, and who is their leader?
1. Prologue

She was standing on top of a ravaged roof. It was snowing. She looked out over the snowy wasteland that had once been Heatherfield. For some reason this place kept appealing to her. It was where it had all began. The mystical energy source known as Sozanite had been found there fourty years ago. Sozanite existed out of very small pebbles. But these pebbles held a great amount of energy. People had found out that this power source was powerful enough to supply power to a country like the United States or Russia for two thousand years. The government, thinking this was the solution to their energy problems, immediately dug out all of the Sozanite and started experimenting on how to use this powerful source to it's maximum potential. After a few years, people had found out that, if you could concentrate it enough and then enrich it, it's power wasn't depleted as fast. They called this enriched version 'Sozanite-II'. With this new technique, one gram of Sozanite-II could supply power to a country like Russia for approximately ten thousand years. To good to be true, it was quickly used as an energy source all around the world. And it was, indeed, to good to be true.

An old man came walking towards her. He had brown hair with tints of grey in them and a beard to match. He wore a brown coat, with a white trunk underneath, and grey trousers, with black boots underneath them. When he had come close enough for her to be able to hear what he said, he spoke:

"Ah, I already thought you'd be here."

He saw how an elderly woman with long black hair looked at him. She had her hair in two ponytails. She wore a light blue robe and grey trousers. She also wore brown snow boots. She had a rose in her hands.

"Yes…"

The man came closer and saw that a tear was running down her cheek.

"Hey, don't cry now."

The woman looked at him.

"It's her birthday. And she's not here to celebrate it with us, while she should be here. It's not fair."

The man sighed and held the woman close.

"I know. Life isn't fair. Otherwise we wouldn't be in this entire mess in the first place. But things are going to change."

He made sure she could see his eyes, which showed a passionate fire.

"She's done it. Together, we have succeeded. And we will make right what went wrong."

Her eyes stopped watering. "Really? She has done it?"

Her sadness was replaced by joy. "That means…"

She looked out over the wastelands again. "We're coming…We're gonna do what you wanted us to do."

She threw the rose, which was caught by the wind and placed solemnly on top of a building which stood higher than all others.

"Happy birthday, C…"


	2. The Tablet of Water

Irma was trying to make her homework.

'_This is so incredibly boring! Why can't someone else do it for me?'_ She thought as she looked at her math exercise. She sighed.

"The square root of 4096x2 is…" She murmured to herself. Suddenly, a blinding light was seen outside, which distracted her.

She went to the window and looked outside. She couldn't see anything.

"What was that?" She asked.

'_Did any of you notice that light as well?'_ Hay-Lin asked telepathically.

'_Yeah.'_ Irma responded.

'_Same.'_ The rest responded.

'_Did any of you actually see what it was?'_ Irma asked.

She didn't get any responses.

'_Wanna see what it is?'_ Cornelia asked.

'_Hell yeah!'_ Will responded, _'Anything better than these math exercises!'_

Irma laughed at that remark.

'_Then let's group up at the Silver Dragon.'_ Cornelia responded.

So, Irma took her stuff and head over to the Silver Dragon. Once there, she went to the basement, only to find Will, Taranee, Cornelia, Hay-Lin and Caleb there.

"So, how did they…?" Irma started.

"We both noticed the light and figured you'd seen it too. So, we thought you wanted to investigate. And if you want to group up…" Caleb said.

"I get it." Irma said.

Together, they all walked outside and asked a woman outside if they knew what the blinding light was.

"Well, it seems like something has crashed, right outside of the city. The police is heading over there right now. It seems it has crashed near the beach."

They thanked the woman and went to the beach. Once there, they saw Irma's dad, Tom.

"Hey dad!" Irma said.

"Hello, mister Lair." The rest of the group said.

"Hello girls. I'm sorry, but no entry beyond this point." Tom said.

"Why not, dad? What has happened?" Irma asked.

Tom turned slightly, giving the girls and Caleb a view of what had happened. A large rock had smashed into the sand. A small crater had formed around it, but other than that, there was no real damage caused by it.

"Is it a meteorite?" Taranee asked, sincerely interested.

"We don't know, but we're thinking it is one. We think it was a small one, that has fallen apart before it hit the Earth. That's why it didn't do so much damage to the environment." Tom said as he turned back to them.

While Tom turned, Will noticed that, on the rock, a sign lit up for a few seconds. The sign of water. It then disappeared and was no longer seeable.

"Something wrong?" Hay-Lin asked Will, who shook her head.

"No, it's nothing. I was just interested." She said with a smile.

*Meanwhile, on a building nearby*

A small flash appeared, from which three women appeared.

Three figures were watching the scene, each of them wore a mask which was black on the right side, and white on the left side. They all wore a robe. The woman to the right had dark blue robes, the woman to the left red robes and the woman in the middle wore light blue robes. All of them also wore black shoes.

"Very well. The first one has arrived." The woman to the right said, with an accent of triumph.

"Don't start celebrating just now. This is just the first piece of the puzzle." The woman to the left said.

"Indeed it is, Ignis. But we may still be glad that it arrived. It means our plan is in motion." The woman in the middle said.

"Thank you, Odor." The woman to the right said.

"I'm just saying that we should still be careful, Agua. The plan could still be thwarted." Ignis said.

Agua turned to Ignis. "By…?"

Ignis simply looked down, towards a redhead. Agua looked down as well and saw it.

"I see. Those five."

"Therefore, we have to be cautious. We may not reveal ourselves, as that is Her will." Ignis said.

Odor turned to the two of them. "Let's go, friends."

The three of them then left.

*On the ground*

'_Did that mean something?'_ Will thought to herself, keeping her thoughts hidden from others.

A group of journalists then came towards Tom, trying to ask him what happened. They pressed the girls and Caleb back.

Will was about to protest, but Taranee stopped her. "It's of no use. They won't budge for a group of teenage girls and a teenage boy."

Will pouted, but nodded. "You're right."

"Let's go." Cornelia said. They all went back to the Silver Dragon.

"A meteorite crash! How exciting!" Hay-Lin said.

"It's just a piece of rock." Cornelia said.

"From SPACE!" Hay-Lin said happily.

"And that makes it better because…?" Irma asked.

"Can't you two just be excited about this? This means Heatherfield will be in the news. Maybe some people might want to see it. Do you think any celebrities would come here just to see the meteorite?" Taranee said.

"Exactly." Hay-Lin said.

"With celebrities, do you mean…Vance Michael Justin?" Irma said, swooning at the thought of VMJ.

Will sighed. Irma and her obsession with a famous singer who, in her opinion, couldn't even sing that well.

"Maybe, maybe not." Taranee said.

"I just hope that we'll still be able to live quietly. I mean, after helping Elyon to the throne and beating Nerissa, I think we deserve a few months of _not_ fighting evil, don't you agree. So if even evil can wait a while, I hope that the journalists and tourists will not disturb the peace around here." Will said.

"But the press is way more evil than Phobos and Nerissa! The press can bring down nations just by writing about them. Think of it. The press has done way more damage to this world than Phobos to Meridian and Nerissa to the universe. And that's the truth. Sadly enough." Irma said.

"Sadly enough?" Caleb asked.

"Well, it means that we actually had pretty crappy villains, right? I mean, the press is more evil then they are and they tried to take over a world or the universe, respectively." Irma responded.

Caleb thought that over. "Now that you mention it…"

"Let's analyze their big plans." Taranee said. "Phobos searched for his sister, found her, then took days glamouring everything around her to look like paradise. Then, when he finally got her powers, he lost them after about ten minutes. Not that much of a big plan, if I may say so myself. And Nerissa…"

"Nerissa first took approximately 3 months to get the Heart of Meridian, then reassembled the old Guardians, only to lose then a few days later. She then absorbed her friends into the scepter, which she got absorbed into herself a few days later. Then, she got stuck there because she wasn't in harmony with the rest of the people trying to escape. She now wonders around fantasy land, lost in her dreams." Will said.

"Well," Caleb said, "if you say it like that, you could say they weren't really a challenge. However, they were pretty tough for you. I mean, you couldn't have defeated Phobos after he absorbed Elyon's powers if it weren't for him not having absorbed it all and her helping you. And with Nerissa, you needed Phobos help to take her down. Then you had to trick him into a vow to beat him, which failed because Cedric ate him. Then you had to take the advise from the sealed Nerissa to defeat Cedric. After that, you needed us to regain your humanity. That sounds more challenging to me."

The girls looked at each other and nodded.

"Okay, maybe we have indeed downgraded them more than we should have." Cornelia said with a smile.

They talked some more. About boys, which Caleb didn't particularly like, clothes, which Caleb didn't like, make-up, which Caleb didn't like…actually, they talked about everything Caleb didn't like.

The sun was setting.

"It's getting late," Hay-Lin said. "You should probably go home."

The rest agreed and they each left to their respective houses. They would come back tomorrow, which was a Sunday, and would go to a swimming pool together.

The next day, Will went to fetch Matt, but he wasn't at home. So, instead, she went to the pet store. There, she found his grandfather.

"Hello Will. What are you doing here?"

"Hello. I'm looking for Matt, have you seen him?" Will asked.

"No, sorry. He came by this morning and…oh, how silly I am!" he responded while shaking his head.

He walked over to a table and took an envelope out of one of the drawers. He then handed it to Will. She opened the envelope and took out a letter.

_Dear Will,_

_Sorry I have to let you know this way, but I got an offer to study music in a city close by. I'm going to call you as soon as possible. Therefore, I left early. I'll be back tonight. If I want to have the best chance of getting it, I'd better be there soon. I'm sorry to miss our swimming date. But I'll make up for it. I'll take you out to dinner and then we'll go to the movie. Please don't be mad._

_Love and Kisses,_

_Matt_

Will sighed.

"Don't worry, Will. Everybody will get a job sooner or later." Matt's grandpa said.

"Yeah, it's just that something like this happened once before. Oh well, I'll see how it works out. It would be great if he actually got the job." Will said.

"Sorry, Will." Matt's grandpa said.

"No problem, sir." Will said.

"Please don't call me sir. It makes me feel old."

Will laughed and said her goodbye. She walked to the Silver Dragon, where Irma, Taranee and Hay-Lin were already waiting.

"Hey girls." Will said.

"Hey," Hay-Lin said, "Where's Matt?"

Will shook her head. "He's not coming. He had gotten an offer to study in a city nearby and to have the biggest chance he had to…"

Suddenly, she gasped.

"What?" Hay-Lin said, not understanding.

"Matt's being kidnapped! Or turned into Shagon again! Or he's being lured away from me, from Heatherfield! Or he could die! Or even worse, he could break up with me!" Will shouted in panic, shaking Hay-Lin up and down.

"Wow, you need to set your priorities!" Irma said. "Besides, it's just a study in a different city, Will. You're just going paranoid."

Will kept rampaging at Hay-Lin, who was starting to feel dizzy. "He's leaving me because I'm worthless! I can't do anything to please him!"

She then got sad and went to sit in a corner, scraping her finger over the floor.

"Okay…" Hay-Lin said, confused and dizzy. "And why would you be worthless? You're a great leader and have gotten us out of many things with your decisions. If that's called worthless, than I'm a piece of trash."

She could see a small smile on Will's face, but she didn't get up.

"She'll be fine soon." Irma said. Taranee nodded at this statement as well, so Hay-Lin let Will be for the time being.

At that moment, Caleb and Cornelia entered the room, quarreling.

"I already told you that you look beautiful in your swimsuit, so what did I do wrong?" Caleb said annoyed, as Taranee, Hay-Lin and Irma sighed.

"You said it way too quick. I know you just said it to not have me get mad at you because you didn't say it!" Cornelia retorted.

"Wait!" Caleb suddenly said. "So, let me get this straight. You are now mad at me because I said you look beautiful in your swimsuit, but if I hadn't said it, you would get mad because I didn't say it? What madness is this?"

His eye then fell on Will, as Cornelia was now standing in front of her.

"What's wrong with her?"

Cornelia turned around and saw Will.

"Oh, she's just being paranoid because Matt couldn't come along since he got an offer to study in a different city today."

"I am _NOT_ being paranoid!" Will said, suddenly back on her feet. "And I'll prove it to you. Let's go to the swimming pool."

She then rushed out of the basement. When everyone was simply standing there, stupefied, Will came back.

"Well, what are you waiting for? Let's go!"

Everybody quickly rushed after her. They caught up to Will, who was walking pretty quickly.

"Calm down, Will." Cornelia said.

Her eye fell on Will's chest. Her eyes got bigger.

"Will," she whispered, "the Heart is glowing!"

Will quickly looked down and saw that her chest was slightly emanating a purple light. She quickly put her hands in front of it. They quickly rushed to an alley. Once they checked if no-one was around, Will got out the Heart.

"Why is it emitting all this light? Is something wrong?" Hay-Lin asked.

"I don't know." Will responded. "But I think the Oracle will know if we ask him."

Will opened a fold and everybody stepped through. Once they had arrived in Kandrakar, Will quickly closed the fold, so that nobody could randomly walk into Kandrakar. They then went to the main chamber. There they found the Oracle.

"Ah," the Oracle said, "You have responded to our call."

The girls looked at each other.

"Uh, of course." Irma said.

"What is the problem?" Taranee asked.

"It seems that there is a disturbance in Heatherfield. As you know, Heatherfield contains a lot of magical energy. The mountains represent Earth, the beach and the sea represent Water, the hot springs and the magma underneath it represents Fire and the air represents Air. Then, we have them all concentrated in one place, making the emergence of Quintessence possible." The Oracle spoke solemnly. "But now, it seems something's changing. I assume you know of the crash at the beach?"

"Yes," Caleb said, "We have been at the beach yesterday. Why?"

"It seems that that rock isn't just an ordinary meteorite. There's something weird with it." The Oracle said.

"Does it have something to do with the water in Heatherfield?" Will asked.

The Oracle looked at her. "It seems that the water is slowly pulling itself towards Heatherfield. I don't know why. It may also be a natural phenomenon, of course, but the Council and I don't think so. It started to happen right after the rock crashed into the beach of Heatherfield. We do not think this is natural. And you don't think so either, if I'm right. Right, Will?"

Everybody turned to Will.

"No. Yesterday I thought I saw the elemental sign of Water on the rock. But it was only a brief moment. I thought it was nothing and that I had just imagined it. But, as it turns out, I didn't."

The Oracle nodded.

"Yes," he said, getting everybody's attention, "I see. It seems that the rock has an effect on the water around Heatherfield. If this continues, the water will leave Heatherfield. I don't know who did this, or what he or she could possibly do with it. I guess only time will tell."

"So you suggest we wait?" Taranee asked. "Maybe the plan is to let Heatherfield sink, like Alantis, if it exists, that is. And then what?"

The Oracle raised his hand and Taranee got silent.

"Listen, young Fire Guardian. We cannot be sure of that, neither can we be sure that it is something else. So, for now, we must wait to find out. But, if you are concerned by this, I would advise you to check the beach regularly."

Taranee looked at the Oracle and, eventually, nodded.

"Now, Guardians," the Oracle spoke solemnly, "go back to Earth, but be wary. It might be that Heatherfield isn't safe anymore."

A fold opened right behind the group. They all nodded at the Oracle as they passed through the fold, as a sign of goodbye and respect.

They ended up in the same alley as they had entered the fold to Kandrakar. They decided that it was the best to still go swimming, but that they should be wary. They also decided that Irma, being the Guardian of Water, would go to the beach and check the water every day. They then walked out of the alley and went to the swimming pool. Unbeknownst to them, somebody was watching them. A man with a brown beard, with tints of grey, put down his paper when they got out of the alley. He watched them go off to the swimming pool. He lay down his paper, gave 10 dollar to a vagabond, and walked in the other direction, suddenly giving a nod to a complete stranger. The stranger looked at him intrigued, but he didn't show any sign of recognition.

Meanwhile, somewhere on top of a building, Agua was looking down on them. She saw the man nodding at a stranger, but she knew it was meant for her. She walked over the building in the same direction as the Guardians and Caleb. She then saw that there was a gap between the building she was standing on and the next. Suddenly, a small bridge appeared, made of ice. Agua crossed it and once she had taken a step on the next building, the ice bridge disappeared. She continued to follow them this way. She then saw them go into a building. She knew it was there that they would be swimming. A bright light appeared behind her. Agua turned around and saw another person, the man with the beard. He did not wear a mask. He smiled at her. She smiled at him as well, but due to her mask it wasn't visible. He, however, knew she was smiling.

"How are you feeling?" he asked.

She was silent for a few seconds.

"Ecstatic." She then answered. "It feels so good being here."

He laughed. "Yes, it sure is better here."

His face then became serious. "They have been informed by the Oracle."

Agua looked in his direction, letting him stare to her mask. He could see only the blue eyes.

"How can you be sure?" She asked.

"The Heart was glowing, but they didn't know what it meant. They then created a fold to Kandrakar to ask what the glowing was." The man said solemnly, while going through his beard with his hand.

Agua nodded. "Very well, then. We must let Her know about this."

The man looked at her eyes. "I will make sure the news reaches her. What will you do?"

Agua looked down at the building W.I.T.C.H. and Caleb were in. The man needed no more information.

"Very well." He said.

A bright light appeared right next of them, but the man did not yet leave. He looked at the light and saw another mask, with only one eye visible. He then shot a last look at Agua, nodded at her, and walked towards the light. The light disappeared. Agua then sat on the edge of the roof, staring down on the building. She looked at her left hand, which was in a black glove. She then looked back to the building. She made a fist of her hand.

…

Will was looking at her phone every three minutes. Had she missed a call of Matt? The rest of the group started to get annoyed by this. So, they came to the conclusion they had to distract her from her phone. Caleb walked towards her.

"Will. I'm sure Matt knew that we would still go swimming without him and would call you _afterwards_. So try to set it out of your head for now. Come and enjoy the day!"

Will looked at him and sighed. "You're right."

Her eyes got brighter. "How about a race?"

Caleb raised an eyebrow. He knew she was a great swimmer, so he was sure he'd lose the race. However, it would keep Will distracted. And, he was actually curious about how far he would fall behind to her. So, he accepted.

They would cross the swimming pool and the first to be at the other side would win. They took a position and wished each other the best of luck. Will added that he 'was going to need it'. Caleb smiled at her and said the same, making Will chuckle.

"You'd wish."

They both got into a starting position. Irma was given the right to start the match. Due to that, it stayed silent for a while. Both Will and Caleb were starting to get annoyed, when Irma suddenly yelled out.

"Start!"

Will took off much faster than Caleb, as she was used to it. She quickly took the lead, but Caleb was right behind her. He kept on swimming as fast as he could. He wondered if he had overtaken Will. He knew he shouldn't look, for it would slow him down, allowing her to pass by, if he was in the lead, or it would just increase the gap. So, instead, he kept on swimming. He tried to keep his mind clear. He then touched the other side and quickly looked up to see where Will was. He couldn't see her. She wasn't behind him, or next of him. He wondered where she was, when a voice was heard from above him.

"So, finally here?"

He looked up, only to see Will look down on him. He could hear her breathing being very fast, meaning that she had arrived here and gotten out of the pool right before he got here. He sighed as Will smiled at him.

"You did well, Caleb."

Caleb got out of the pool and together, they walked towards the rest of the group. Hay-Lin came towards them.

"That was amazing! Will seemed to go like a spear, and you too, Caleb! I never knew you could swim that well." She said happily and impressed.

"That's what you get when you have to swim away from an army." Caleb said, reflecting his time at Metamoor, when it was still under Phobos' reign.

When they arrived back at the rest of the group, they congratulated Will and praised Caleb. Caleb then got a kiss from Cornelia. Caleb, once again, looked at her blue swimsuit and after a short while he said:

"You really do look beautiful." He said, making Cornelia blush and hug Caleb.

Taranee, Irma, Hay-Lin and Will looked at each other with a raised eyebrow, seeing what he had done there.

Caleb and Cornelia kissed. Cornelia gave Caleb a weird look, indicating that she had caught on with what he had done.

"Clever boy."

"I have my moments." Caleb responded, although a bit of pride was obvious, since he straightened his back.

A rumble was heard. The group looked around to see where it came from, when Irma lay her hand on her stomach. Everybody knew what was going on. They themselves also felt hungry. So, they went to the cafeteria in the swimming pool. There, they ordered something to eat and drink. They then took a seat. Suddenly, Will's phone rang. She saw that it was Matt.

She went to a more quiet place and picked it up.

"Hey, Matt. How's it going? Were you allowed to study there?"

"Hey, Will." The familiar voice of Matt said through the phone. Will was secretly glad that there was nothing wrong. All of her previous thoughts faded away. Everything was fine. Yet, she still felt something. As if something major was about to happen. And she was sure that rock at the beach had something to do with it.

"I have been there and the three people that were here told me they were impressed by what they saw. But I still have to graduate, of course. They want to know a little bit more about me and how I study. If they like what they see, they would allow me to study there. But they also said that I couldn't leave the city until they had decided, which could take up to a week or two. I told them I was living in a city close by which was a one-hour drive, yet they still didn't let me go back. Oh well, you can manage a week without me, right?"

Will laughed. "Of course, but keep in touch with me, okay? I want to know if they let you in."

"Sure thing, Will." Matt responded. "And, how's it going? Having fun?"

"Yeah. I just had a race against Caleb, but he lost." Will said with a hint of laughter.

"Silly boy. He should know he can't beat you by now. He has even seen you getting second place in that competition at school last year." Matt responded.

Will looked around, to make sure nobody was around.

"Also, we have been to Kandrakar. That rock at the beach, that's no ordinary rock."

It took a while for Matt to respond. Will thought he was making sure, just like she had, that no-one could hear him talk. They didn't want the secret to be exposed to the world.

"Tell me. What is it?"

"It seems that the rock is causing the water in the vicinity of Heatherfield to behave strangely. Everything is being pulled towards Heatherfield. We don't know if they want to flood Heatherfield, or if they have different plans, but we're on the lookout. Irma is going to the beach everyday to find out what's happening. The Oracle questions if it's a natural phenomenon, but he doesn't think so. He doesn't know who's behind this."

"Will you keep me up-to-date with this? When you need me, I'll return. I can apply to other universities as well. But there's only one Heatherfield and only one you." Matt said.

"O, that's so sweet. But yes, I'll keep you up-to-date. But for now, try to make sure you get that spot in that university." Will responded.

"I will. Bye, Will."

"Bye, Matt."

They both hung up. Will walked back to the rest. Unbeknownst to her, somebody had been spying on her. Agua appeared from the shadows. Her voice was filled with disappointment.

"No new information. That's a pity."

She then disappeared in a green light.

Will came back with the group.

"And," Hay-Lin asked, "What did Matt say?"

"He said that they were impressed by what they had seen. Not that unusual, I presume. I mean, he is a guitarist himself. If you _make_ music yourself, it'd be easier to study it. But he also said he couldn't leave the city until they, the three people who had been talking with him about school and music, had decided. And he also asked how we were doing." Will responded.

"He can't go to Heatherfield until they decided?" Irma said. "Why? It's a city close by, right? The nearest city is a one-hour drive from here. Surely, he can get there in time again?"

Will shrugged. "Those are the rules of the university and he'll stick to them. He doesn't want to ruin his chances to get the study."

Taranee looked at her with an intriguing look. "Did you also tell him about…?"

She didn't have to finish her sentence. Will knew what she was going to ask and she nodded.

"Nobody heard me. I told him we had gone _there_ and that the rock wasn't an ordinary rock. He then said that, if we would need him, he'd come back."

Taranee nodded at her. "Good."

They talked a bit about girl things, which Caleb didn't like, so he went swimming again. After he came back, and the girls had swum some more themselves, they noticed it was evening already. They decided it was time to leave. Irma would check the beach before going home.

Irma walked towards the beach and, once there, took of her shoes, strapped up the legs of her trousers and walked into the sea for a small bit.. She closed her eyes and tried to feel the water. Or, to be more precise, the amount of it. Had it become more since the last time she had been there? Or had it become less? Why was it coming towards Heatherfield? She strongly thought it was because of the rock in the beach, but perhaps the water was drawn to its exact location. That would prove to her that the rock was the cause of it. However, she felt no center. It was, however, clear that the amount of water, as she and the rest of the group had already suspected, had increased. Irma wondered what the purpose of the rock was. Was it to create a flood over Heatherfield? Perhaps. Nobody knew. Except the beings who had placed it there. She sent her findings to Will via telepathy and left to her home.

…

The man stroke through his beard with his hand. In front of him, somebody was standing. This woman…had changed over the years. He couldn't blame her. She always kept her mask on, even among them. They all knew why. Yet, he was getting a strange feeling when he was close to her. It felt the same as back then. He quickly dispelled that thought from his mind. He was too old for that now. Besides, if everything went according to plan, he wouldn't even have the chance anymore. He saw how the woman, in an elegant manner, signed him that he could take a seat. He smiled. An old treat of her time as governor. She had always despised the job and he could understand why. He took a seat.

The woman was wearing dark red robes and black, leather shoes. She took a seat in something that vaguely resembled a throne. She placed her hands together. There were a few small wrinkles in them, but they seamed to become less with every second. The man looked at the wrinkles, until they were no longer visible. If it wasn't for the fact that he had seen this happen before, he thought he would have been going mad. She then turned her head towards him. He saw the mask, which was white in it's entirety, with small black stripes under her eyes which went to the sides of her face in small steps. On the right side, no eye was visible. On the left side, a small opening in the mask showed her eye, brown of color.

"Tell me." The woman said.

The man bowed his head.

"The Tablet of Water has arrived on the beach. It has been placed on the position Agua requested, as we agreed. The girls have been there. They have also spoken to the Oracle. It seems no-one knows what we're up to. Also, Matt Olsen has been taken out of the city."

At these words, the woman leant back and her brown eye grew a bit darker.

"Excellent. Everything is going according to plan."

She rose and the man rose as well. Together, they walked towards a window. They saw the ravaged city again. In front of the window, there was a small map. The woman picked it up and opened it, revealing a small piece of paper with burn marks. She looked at what was written on the paper, the man did so as well, even though they both knew what was written on it. The woman slowly placed it back in the map and lay the map back in its original position.

"This is what we're doing it for." She said, first pointing at the map and then raising her right hand towards the ravaged city outside. Her voice sounded cold.

The woman looked at the man, who replied her look. The one brown eye looked in his.

"You've changed." He said.

"You have as well. We all have. But we won't if we continue. We need to continue this. For her. For ourselves. For everybody. And you can't deny it. What do you prefer, the feelings you have now? No, of course you don't. We have lost everything." The woman said, sounding cold.

He closed his eyes. He knew she was right. They had to continue and give it their all. And if their plan went as it should go, nobody would get hurt. But perhaps somebody would. He couldn't tell. After all, it was all done for them, the people. But she was right when she had said that they were also doing it for themselves.

He looked up again, only to see her. They again looked at each other for a short while.

"You are right." He said.

"Of course I'm right." She said. "I have seen it, in all of us."

She turned around again and walked away, the man following her.

"You have to keep an eye on the Guardians. They will try to interfere. They mustn't. Keep me updated on what's going on. I want all the information I can get."

She suddenly stopped.

"The rest will be taken care of by Agua, Ignis and Odor. You shall keep an eye on the Guardians, while the others shall make sure the Tablets are placed."

A light appeared behind the man.

"So you have said it."

He walked through the light and disappeared.

"So, it shall be done." Said the woman.

She noticed how an old, black cat came walking towards her. The cat purred. She picked up the cat and stroke it.

"Don't worry, Napoleon. Everything is going according to plan."


	3. The Tablet of Fire

The next day, the Guardians met at the Silver Dragon basement. They had asked Yan-Lin to listen to their story and give them advice. They told about their chat with the Oracle, their visit to the beach and their findings about the water. In the very end, Yan-Lin sighed and then spoke in a solemn way.

"I see. I myself am wondering what they are planning too, or who 'they' are, for that matter. Also, I don't think Matt has been summoned to that university without a reason, Will, dear."

At this remark, Will rose an eyebrow. "Of course not, they have heard about his qualities and the university would like to see if they are good enough for him to study there."

Yan-Lin shook her head. "I am afraid that it might also have a different reason, dear."

She then left the basement, leaving the Guardians, besides Hay-Lin, stare at each other.

"What did she mean?" Cornelia asked.

"You'll see." Hay-Lin said.

Yan-Lin returned with an envelope, and a small dish of cookies.

"Enjoy, kiddos." She said, while placing the dish on a box.

Everybody took a cookie and watched how Yan-Lin opened the envelope. There was a sense of suspense hanging in the air, which was slowly taking control of everybody and only grew with every passing second, as Yan-Lin slowly got out the letter and carefully read it to the group.

"_Dear Mr. and Mrs. Lin,_

_You have recently participated in a contest in the daily paper, published on the first of December, 2011. We are glad to tell you that you have won the first prize in this contest: a one and a half week cruise trough the Mediterranean sea, visiting Barcelona, Spain, Venice, Italy, Athena, Greece, Alexandria, Egypt and finally Gibraltar, Spain and then back to New York, the United States. This cruise shall leave in New York at 20:00._

_All costs will be paid by us and you shall be sleeping in first-class suites on deck. Room service is available at every hour of the day._

_If you want more information, you can mail to us via the e-mail address that is located in the right corner of the newspaper._

_Yours Sincerely,_

_John M. Stanley, Director of the daily paper of Heatherfield."_

_(This contest was sponsored by SimulTech)_

"Your parents have won a cruise in a contest? I can't remember anything like that in the paper." Taranee said.

"Neither could we." Said Hay-Lin and Yan-Lin at the same time.

"So," Hay-Lin continued on her own, "We checked the paper of the first of December. And guess what?"

"There was a contest." Yan-Lin said.

"What? Impossible!" Taranee sputtered.

"My parents remember the contest, while grandma and I didn't. We remember a different article at the place of the contest. It seems that either our or their memories are altered. I vote for theirs." Hay-Lin said.

"Freaky. Those people have the power to manipulate history? And the paper?" Irma said, "I thought that was impossible. The first part, I mean."

Yan-Lin sighed. "It is…supposed to be."

The Guardians looked at her.

"Seems like you know more about it." Taranee said.

"Indeed I do, kiddos. It is called 'falsification of history'." Yan-Lin explained, "Kandrakar once thought it was needed to change history, but it was a small thing that had caused a lot of bad things to happen. That is called the butterfly effect. So, once Kandrakar 'falsified' history, none of the bad things could occur. Then, the way to falsify history, which was written on a piece of parchment, was destroyed, never to be used again. However, it seems like someone has managed to regain the lost secret and use it for his or her cause. But for some reason, you, as Guardians, and I, as ex-guardian, are unaffected by this."

"Wicked." Irma responded.

"It seems they are pulling the ones we love out of town. First Matt, now my parents. They have already said they wanted to go and they insisted on taking me with them. Luckily, grandma saw through this so-called first prize due to her being unaffected by this falsification and said that she would take care of me for the time being. She used the argument of 'you can have some time alone then' and they finally agreed." Hay-Lin explained. "But I wonder why our loved ones should leave town. I think there really is a plan involving the city. And who will be the next one to leave town?"

"We must make sure that the five of us stay here in Heatherfield, together." Will said, "That way, we'll have a bigger chance of discovering what the plan is and then we can prevent it."

"If we are dealing with someone who can falsify history to his or her will, then, how do we ever beat someone like that? If we find out who he or she is, he or she, or they, will just change his or her name. And then we can start all over again." Taranee said.

Will got a small grin on her face, her hair slightly covering her face.

"Then we just have to make sure they don't find out that we know who he or she is, or they are."

The rest nodded. "That seems like a good plan."

"A very good plan, indeed, Guardians." Said a voice.

The Guardians looked around, but couldn't see anyone.

"The problem is that we now know. Such a shame."

"We. That implements there is more than just you." Will responded to the voice.

"How clever. Then again, you always were quick with catching on to things. However, you will not be able to stop this." The voice said.

"Do you have the same feeling?" Taranee whispered to Irma.

"That I've heard this voice before. Oh yeah. I just…can't place it."

"Show yourself!" Will said in a demanding tone.

"All in due time, Guardian. We will show ourselves eventually." The voice said. "But for now, shouldn't you be trying to figure out the secret of the rock at the beach?"

Suddenly, the air got lighter and it seemed that the voice had disappeared. Will clenched her fists.

"Did you notice that too?" Taranee asked, now to everybody.

"What?" Cornelia responded.

"I had a certain feeling of recognition. As if I have heard that voice before. I just can't place it." Taranee said.

The rest thought for a short while and then responded that they felt the same. Even Yan-Lin admitted she also had the feeling she knew the voice from something.

"Maybe it's an old enemy? Like Phobos or Nerissa?" Irma asked, but it was evident that she wasn't certain of herself.

Will shook her head. "No, Phobos is still in his prison on Meridian and Nerissa is still trapped in the Heart of Meridian, as it seems. So it can't be either of them."

They all took a seat and started saying random names they knew, most of them had been people they had fought before, like Cedric, Miranda and Frost. But with every passing name, it seemed that none of them gave them the same feeling. They felt as if the voice was still there, but they didn't know from who.

Meanwhile, Odor, Ignis and Agua where sitting on top of the Silver Dragon.

"They are trying to figure out who fits the voice." Odor said, with a hint of laughter. "How amusing. They will not find out."

"And even if they do, they won't believe it." Agua said, with the same hint of laughter.

Out of the three of them, Ignis was the one who was the least amused. Agua noticed.

"Oh, come on, I. Have some fun before it all ends."

"Fun? Agua, this is serious. We must not fail. There are no second chances. Or, perhaps there is, but…I'm not sure. I just don't want to fail this. We must succeed. There are millions, no, billions of lives at stake here. And the best way to succeed is to stay focused on the mission." Ignis retorted, not sounding all too amused.

Odor raised her hand. "Calm down, Ignis. You know that we also have to keep an eye on the Guardians. That, too, is part of the mission and vital to our success. And since he has gone to Her to bring out report, it is, for the time being, our duty to keep an eye on them."

Ignis nodded. "Yes, that is true. But that doesn't mean that it is fun."

Odor had to admit that this was, indeed, true. Agua then noticed a bright light behind them, from which the bearded man appeared. The bright light then disappeared.

"She is pleased by the current progress and said that we had to continue. I have to keep an eye on them, while you continue placing the tablets." He said solemnly, without hesitation or emotion.

The three women nodded at him and then each of them disappeared. Agua left in a green light, just as Odor, while Ignis got engulfed in flames and when they doused, she was gone. The man was not surprised or impressed. He had seen it happen multiple times. He knew Agua and Odor could also disappear in another way, but that they preferred this way. He looked over the city. He sighed as he saw the beach. He looked towards the place where Heatherfield's hot springs were located and got a small grin on his face. The next target.

Meanwhile, W.I.T.C.H., Caleb and Yan-Lin had come to the conclusion that they couldn't place their finger on it, so they gave up. They decided to keep on the lookout for signs that indicated their loved ones were pulled out of the city. Will decided, on Yan-Lin's advice to keep Matt away from Heatherfield for now, but keep him alert. Will then called Matt and told him what they had just heard and decided.

"That seems like something big is about to happen. Are you sure you don't want me to be with you?"

"No. We have to see what they are planning. You are close by, you can be here in an hour. The Lins are going on a cruise and who knows what they are planning with the rest of our loved ones? We can't risk to now foil this peaceful plan. Maybe they'll switch to a more aggressive approach. We will then put countless of lives at stake. We're Guardians, it is our duty to protect them." Will responded.

"I agree." Matt responded. "I'll hear from you again. Bye."

"Bye."

Will hung up and went home. She went to her room and lay on her bed. She closed her eyes and thought about the situation. She tried to think, but everything was incomprehensible. What could they possibly want with water in Heatherfield? It seemed like they were luring the loved ones of the Guardians away from the city. What could they possibly achieve with that?

Irma went to the beach and checked the water. Again, more water had come to Heatherfield. Why? Perhaps Taranee was right and they wanted to flood the city. And what would they accomplish with that? It had her guessing, but she knew it would be something. She saw the rock and went close to it. It felt weird when she was there. She had hid it last time, with the rest there, but it sort of made her feel…triumphant. As if it was calling to her. She was in conflict with this feeling. It was such a sort of feeling that, if you had it, you disgusted it, but if you didn't have it, you wanted it. She wandered away, getting the same feeling of returning there, wanting it. Yet she knew she didn't want it, so she kept on walking. Perhaps that was part of their plan. She couldn't resist looking back at the rock, though.

Taranee sat on her bed and looked outside. She could look directly at the hot springs of Heatherfield. She had never realized it before. She knew that the hot springs were so hot due to the magma underneath the water which heated it up. And magma was, in fact, a form of one thing: Fire. Her own element. Was she meant to live here, with view of her own element? She thought about these things that had just come to her. Her mind then wandered through all the events of the past three days. What is happening? She had felt Irma's feelings towards the rock. She disgusted it, just as she knew Irma did. However, where she didn't want to go back there, she knew Irma did want that. Had it been a smart idea to let her check the beach? Not that she wanted to change it now. She would change it if it became too dangerous. Will would see that it was too dangerous as well and switch.

Hay-Lin was looking at her parents. They had been packing their bags the entire day, as they would drive to the airport tonight for their flight to New York. The next day they would board the cruise ship and leave for Europe. They dined together, with Hay-Lin showing her happiness for them. Yan-Lin, however, saw through the entire charade and knew that she was worried. But she could also see that she was truly happy for them. Perhaps it was the thought that the plan could be flooding the city. If that was the case, they would be far away, safe from the flood. Yan-Lin went along with Hay-Lin's charade. After the dinner, Hay-Lin helped her parents load their bags into the car. After a goodbye kiss, they drove away, towards the setting sun. Yan-Lin lay a hand on Hay-Lin's shoulder.

"Don't worry. Everything will eventually be fine. It always will."

"I know." Hay-Lin responded.

Cornelia went home as well. Napoleon was laying on the couch, right next to Lillian. Cornelia went to sit right next of Napoleon and took him on the lap. She started to stroke him, while lost in her thoughts. She usually didn't really think much about the problems she was having at that moment, as it would only distract her and make her somber, which she didn't like. But now, she couldn't help it. The danger had only been this close to her home once before, which was when Cedric was attacking Earth after eating Phobos. But that danger was quickly averted by going Zenith, and, luckily for them, Nerissa's selfishness had caused her to be trapped in the crystal so that she couldn't make use of that. But now the danger was real and it would last longer. They could just stop here for a while, tormenting the Guardians with their own thoughts. But she didn't think they would do that. She hadn't noticed that Lillian had gotten up and was now standing in front of her. She looked a bit shyly. Cornelia stared at her and raised her eyebrow, awaiting what would come now in a heightened sense of anticipation.

"Yes, Lillian?" Cornelia asked, not trying to rush it.

"I didn't think I would ever ask this of you, but…" Lillian said slowly and with amazement of herself, "Could you, perhaps, if you have the time…"

Cornelia's attention was now fully grasped. Lillian eventually sighed and just said it straightforward.

"Could you tell me a bedtime story?" She asked, not looking at Cornelia's face.

This let Cornelia laugh and Lillian's eyes darkened.

"Of course I will, sweetie." Cornelia responded.

"Really?" Lillian said delighted, "But, why? You were laughing at me."

"You brought it as if you were about to say something really important." Cornelia said, laughingly.

She then proceeded to bring Lillian to bed and told her her favorite bed time story. The story about four fairy protectors that defended princess Lillian of an evil sorceress.

…

Ignis stood next of Her. She softly stroke over Napoleon's head.

*_Initiating transfer._*

Ignis watched as She walked towards a control panel and typed in the password: CHANGE.

*_Transfer Initiated. Operators on stand by._*

Ignis watched as the Tablet of Fire, standing in the middle of the room, was being surrounded by four small arms, which were rising out of the floor, which all had a sort of eye on them.

*_Operators ready._*

She touched a touch screen and moved her hand from left to right, removing some dust. She placed her hand over it. Lightning sparked from her hand to the touch screen. The touch screen started emitting light.

*_Verification needed. Please insert verification to gain access. Please wait a moment while the verification process starts._*

She turned around and looked at Ignis with Her one brown eye. She signed that Ignis should come over. Her eye then went to Napoleon, who immediately came running towards Her and went to sit on Her shoulder. She started stroking Napoleon. Ignis had come over to the table. Ignis noticed how Her eye went to the touch screen and how She waved her right hand to it. Ignis noticed how they hadn't talked during the entire event. It was done as a ritual. She was the leader of the ritual, while Ignis was following. Had she forgotten that it was not Her alone who had made it possible to do this?

"I have not forgotten, Ignis." She suddenly said, Her eye focused on Ignis's face. "But this is, as they say, your party. You have chosen this location, so I am letting you do everything. I am just here to make sure everything goes as it should. That is why I am operating everything, to ensure everything works."

Ignis nodded. That seemed fair enough. And she knew that She would never betray her. They were like family and the five of them were the only things they had left. Ignis noticed a hand on the touch screen.

*_Verification needed. Please insert verification to gain access._*

"Ah, it's ready." Ignis said.

Ignis placed her hand on the touch screen. A scan of her hand was made. There was a silence for a short while.

*_Access granted. Initiating transfer._*

Ignis smiled, even though it wasn't visible.

She went to stand next of Her, as she watched the eyes shoot of beams at the Tablet of Fire. Ignis saw the Tablet of Fire being engulfed in a white light. Eventually the white light diminished and faded out. When the light had fully disappeared, the Tablet of Fire had disappeared as well.

*_Transfer finished. CHANGE is happening._*

"It is done." She said to Ignis. She had stopped stroking Napoleon.

"I shall make sure it is placed in the right spot. I shall make sure our plan doesn't fail." Ignis responded.

A small laughter was heard. "Have you forgotten it isn't you alone who is making this possible?"

Ignis turned to Her. "Using my own words against me, huh? It seems you have learned through the years."

"We all have. But now, go!" She said. Ignis nodded as a bright light appeared behind her.

"When will it arrive?" Ignis asked.

"Tomorrow evening." She said, to which Ignis nodded.

Ignis stepped through the bright light.

Napoleon was sitting near a window and stared at Her.

"Are they still in the dark? You know they must be. At least until the very end."

"They are." She answered, "Or at least, they are for as far as I know."

Napoleon nodded. "Good."

…

Hay-Lin was standing next to the rock at the beach. She looked at it as she wondered what mysteries were bound to it. She thought it to be exciting, yet frightening. She turned around, only to see a woman in dark blue robes, wearing a mask. Hay-Lin backed up, only to bump into another woman. This woman was wearing light blue robes, wearing a mask. She tried running to the right, but noticed a woman in red robes coming towards her, wearing a mask. She tried running to the left, but noticed that the woman with light blue robes was walking to that position. Hay-Lin was now trapped between the three women and the rock. For a moment she despaired, but then remembered that there was still a way out. She suddenly transformed into her Guardian form and took flight. The three women looked at Hay-Lin, who was escaping. Hay-Lin smiled at them and looked up, only to see an open hand with a few wrinkles. Her eyes showed fear, and the desperation returned. Lightning crackled around the hand and shot at Hay-Lin. Hay-Lin got hit and fell to the ground. Lightning crackled around her. She looked up and saw the same hand, now clenched into a fist. She had sworn there were wrinkles in it at first. The thee women came closer. The hand opened itself and four more rocks came out of it. One of them crashed into the hot springs of Heatherfield. Hay-Lin saw how the three masked women came closer.

"You shall not interfere. You can not!"

Hay-Lin looked at the three masks in shock. They reached out for her and then…

Hay-Lin shot up. She was sweating. She looked around and saw that she was in her own room. She had been sleeping. She had had a nightmare. Sweat ran from her hair down her left cheek and fell on her hand. She had to tell this to the rest.

*The next morning, Monday*

Hay-Lin had come to school early, after having contacted the rest. Everybody had already arrived, except for Will.

"Where is she? This is really important!" Hay-Lin said impatiently.

Will came running towards them.

"Okay," she said, while panting heavily, "What's up?"

Everybody turned to Hay-Lin who had summoned them early.

"I've been having nightmares." She said.

The rest of the group stared at her.

"You have summoned us early, on a _MONDAY_, because you have nightmares?" Cornelia said, sounding a bit irritated.

Will, on the other hand, seemed to take this very seriously.

"What did you see, Hay-Lin?" She said.

"I saw three masked women, one in red robes, one in light blue robes and one in dark blue robes, surrounding me while I was at the rock at the beach. Then I suddenly became a Guardian and tried to fly away, when a hand appeared above me and send me back to the ground. The three masked women then say that "_You shall not interfere. You can not!_", while four rocks fall from the sky, one of them crashing into the hot springs." Hay-Lin said, sounding a bit scared.

"Those three masked women," Will said, pondering, "I bet those are our enemies."

"You're just fearing what might come. Do you really think they need five rocks? And, even if that is true, why would one of them place a rock in the hot springs. The beach I can get, they can create a flood there, but, the hot springs?" Cornelia said, trying to counter Hay-Lin's fears.

Will raised her eyebrow.

"We shall see." She said calmly, not trying to irritate anybody.

"You believe this?" Cornelia said.

"It does sound kinda weird, and I can agree with Corny about the weird pick of the hot springs." Irma said. She then realized something. "Did we just agree on something?"

Cornelia looked at her. "Just this once. Don't get used to it."

"As a matter of fact, I do believe this," Will said, "Hay-Lin has proven before that she can see what's going to happen through her dreams."

"Yeah," Taranee said, "Remember with Elyon? She saw it happening in a dream before."

Cornelia and Irma didn't seem too convinced, but they got along with the three of them.

That day, nothing really happened at school. There was a little tension between Hay-Lin and Cornelia, but it didn't really erupt into something. Caleb came walking towards them, not having attended school and instead doing research with Yan-Lin. Due to how he was walking, the Guardians could easily see that he found out something.

"So," Will said as soon as Caleb had come close enough to hear what she was saying, "What did you find?"

His eyes shot to Irma, then back to Will. This quick glance made Irma uncomfortable.

"Is something wrong? What happened?" Irma quickly asked him.

Caleb looked at her and smiled at her.

"Nothing to worry about, Irma. Or at least, it's not yet. It seems it's the Lair's turn to leave the city right now."

The faces of the Guardians hardened.

"Where are they off to?" Irma asked, with a slight hint of uneasiness.

"Nowhere…yet." Caleb answered grimly. "Our fears have been proven, they really _are_ trying to get out loved ones out of the city."

"But that's not the real question, is it?" Will said grimly, her eyes closed, thinking about it.

"It's not?" The rest of the group asked, all looking surprised, as Will shook her head.

"The question is the following: Who's the target? Them, out of the city, or us, inside the city." She replied, her eyes dark, as well as her voice.

As they exchanged grim looks, Irma's phone rang. She picked it up. She didn't say a word, although she tried to. She shook her head and gasped in shock when she heard something. The rest of the group was looking at her, anxiously awaiting what she would have to say. Eventually, the call ended and Irma put away her phone, still having her mouth open.

"You're catching flies." Hay-Lin said, trying to break the dark tone lingering in the air.

Irma closed her mouth.

"So," Will said darkly, "What happened?"

"Apparently," Irma said, "My parents have gotten a letter which had tickets to the Bahamas. When they looked if it was really for them, they noticed that it was actually meant for someone else. After looking for that person, that person stated that 'he already had ordered new tickets, since he thought he had lost them, and since he wouldn't get his money back, we could have them'. But guess what?"

They all raised an eyebrow.

"There were only three tickets. And my parents decided that I am old enough to stay home alone, so…they left me behind. They're already on the plane…they were sure I would understand…" Irma said, sounding sad.

"Don't let it get to your head, girl." Will said. "You know it's a plot. I'm sure they wouldn't have done this if they weren't influenced in some way."

Irma nodded. "Yeah…" She still didn't sound all too sure, though.

They then went to the Silver Dragon and made their homework together. Yan-Lin served them dinner as well. Will was called by her mom, telling her to come home. Will got ready to leave, and the rest of the group decided to go home as well.

At that moment, the sky suddenly flashed. Everybody immediately reached for their eyes, trying to protect them. The Guardians looked up to the sky, trying to find out what was causing the flash. However, it was Caleb who spotted it first.

"Over there!" he said, pointing towards a fireball.

They saw the fireball slowly come closer to Heatherfield. They saw it going over their heads and crash into Heatherfield with a bang. They saw smoke coming from the crash-site and they looked at each other. They nodded. They quickly ran towards the crash-site.

"Taranee!" Will said, "Can you tell where the crash-site is exactly?"

Taranee focused and felt where the heat came from.

"It's…" Her eyes opened. "At Warmwater! You know, the hot springs near the mountains. You were right, Hay-Lin!"

"I told you so!" Hay-Lin said, while Will was smiling.

They rushed over there and saw that it had literally crashed into the building, causing the building to have caught fire.

As they rushed past the sign ' Warmwater' they noticed Yan-Lin there. Some people were trying to keep the fire contained by throwing buckets of water towards the hot springs.

"What's the damage, grandma?" Hay-Lin asked.

It seemed like a stupid question, regarding that the building was on fire. However, Yan-Lin knew what her granddaughter meant.

"A few people are badly wounded, but nobody died. Although there's one woman who nearly did, the rock crashed right next to her. She didn't have the time to move anymore, so she's lucky to be alive."

It seemed Yan-Lin was thinking. Caleb noticed.

"What are you thinking of, Miss Lin?"

"Oh, it's nothing." She said. Caleb wasn't so sure, but he decided to go with it. If she thought it to be really important, she would say what she was thinking of later.

Suddenly, Irma touched Will. Will looked at her and rose an eyebrow, silently asking what it was that she wanted to know.

"How odd is it to wear a mask at a time and day like this? Because last time I checked it's not Halloween yet."

Will was alerted immediately. Irma nodded over Will's shoulder. Will turned around and saw a woman in red robes, wearing a mask. Everyone was so occupied with the hot springs that nobody seemed to notice her.

"Girls, Caleb," Will said, immediately getting their attention, "I think we have found ourselves a troublemaker."

They now all noticed the woman in red robes. She noticed they had seen her and turned around, casually walking away. The girls and Caleb quickly ran after her. Taranee noticed a sign, saying: "Naturally heated" laying on the floor, having marks of being blasted away by the impact.

"Wait up, kiddos! I can't run that fast!" Yan-Lin yelled from behind them.

They quickly closed the distance to the woman, who was still casually walking away from them. Caleb saw a tree and a bench. He used the bench to get to the tree and then used the tree to catapult himself in front of her. She came to a halt. It seemed that, even though her face wasn't visible, she was actually kind of bored.

"You didn't necessarily have to do such an act to stop me. I mean, was just overtaking me that hard? I was just casually strolling along." She said in a bored voice.

Caleb grinned. The rest of the Guardians surrounded her and the masked woman turned to Will.

"As you are the leader, I will talk directly to you." She said, seemingly cooperating.

"Who are you?" Will asked, "What do you want?"

A laugh was heard. "Both of those questions will be answered in due time. The last one for sure."

"Why did you target the beach and Warmwater? I can understand that there's a lot of water near the beach, which can be used to flood the city, but Warmwater? What's that all about?" Irma asked.

The cloaked woman turned to her.

"All will be revealed in due time."

"Is that the only thing you're going to say? You sound like the Oracle. You're just as vague." Irma said, sounding annoyed.

A small laughter was heard, followed by a murmur that nobody could really understand.

"Perhaps you can answ…" Cornelia started.

"We shall see." The cloaked woman interrupted her, seemingly having read her mind.

"Why are you here, talking to us, if you're not going to say anything, except that 'all will be revealed in due time'?" Cornelia said, sounding slightly irritated.

Again, a small laughter. "I actually can answer that question. You see, while you are here, you could pose a danger to our plans. You must be kept in check. We're watching you, all the time. You cannot escape our sight. And that's what I was doing when you spotted me. Keeping an eye on you." The cloaked woman answered.

"You wanted us to see you, didn't you?" Will asked.

The cloaked woman turned to her. "Clever girl. Yes, I indeed did. I indeed wanted you to spot me. Everybody is at the hot springs. We're all alone now. So let me just tell you all this: all of your efforts will be futile. You _will not_ find out what we're up to _unless_ we want you to. Also, you cannot stop us. So don't even bother."

"If I got a dollar for every time somebody said that, I'd be rich now." Irma said, "You don't really think we're gonna let you have your way because you say so, right?"

"Of course not. But I have to warn you, don't I?" The cloaked woman said.

Taranee had been listening to the conversation, constantly wandering off into her thoughts. She thought she had heard this voice before, but she couldn't lay her finger on it. It was so familiar to her…If only she could figure this out! Then the entire situation would change!

Suddenly, the cloaked woman turned to her and raised her hand, pointing at Taranee.

"You will eventually figure out who I, we, are, I'm sure of it… but for now, you shall stay in the dark. However, she will soon provide you the answer to a certain question you asked. I am sure she already knows…"

"So, you can read thoughts." Taranee said, slightly sounding impressed.

"I can do it even better than you can. I am able of going into someone's thoughts at will. If I wished to, I could even intercept the telepathic link you five have, but I won't…to give you a fair chance against us. Not that it will matter, eventually…"

Hay-Lin didn't seem too scared anymore, even though she had been showing slight hints of fear before, when she had had her nightmare.

"So you were the one who was giving me that nightmare!" She exclaimed.

"Indirectly, yes." The cloaked woman responded.

"Indirectly?" Hay-Lin asked confused.

"It will be…" the cloaked woman started.

"Revealed in due time," Irma finished the sentence, "We know, thank you."

"Then why bother asking?" the cloaked woman said. "I must leave now. However, I will warn you again. Do not interfere. Or else…"

"Or else what?" The five of them asked simultaneously.

Suddenly, the woman caught fire and disappeared. Ashes were laying on the ground. Will quickly got closer and saw what the ashes were spelling: "Why even bother asking?"

"Really funny…" Caleb whispered.

Yan-Lin came running towards them. She stood still and panted.

"I saw a ball of fire, what did I miss?" she asked.

Hay-Lin wanted to start explaining, but Taranee stopped her.

"We'll explain later, but we have to go to the hot springs right now!"

They all saw her distressed and rushed over there. Yan-Lin sighed.

"And now I can run all the way back? I think I'll just walk…"

They reached the rock again and they saw Taranee look around.

"What are you…?" Caleb started, but Taranee hushed him. She pointed at the sign she had seen before.

"There! That's the answer to your question, Irma."

Irma looked at her, visibly confused. "What do you mean?"

" 'Naturally heated'," Taranee explained. "What is the natural way of heating a spring?"

"Magma. But I don't see how…" Irma started, but suddenly realizing what she was about to say. "Magma…or in other words…"

They all realized the meaning of Warmwater now. They turned to the rock.

"Fire…" they all said simultaneously, as the mark of fire was visible on the rock for a short time.

…

She walked through the demolished room. Plants were regaining their territory, once lost to mankind. Eventually, all the buildings would serve as a foothold for animals and plants.

She saw her collection of valuable items. She took a small pouch and went back to the room she was in before. Napoleon was sitting on the table, looking at her when she entered. She had taken off her mask. She only showed her face to Napoleon, knowing that he wouldn't start about it, since he had seen what had happened to her. She opened the pouch and placed her hand in it. She let some sand run through her fingers. She took the sand and then threw it at the floor. It created a small circle. She saw the conversation between Ignis and the Guardians. She saw how Ignis gave them the warning and then disappeared.

"Excellent." She said to Napoleon, who purred, showing he, too, was satisfied with the way things were going. "Everything is going according to plan…"


	4. The Tablet of Earth

The Guardians and Caleb had assembled at the Silver Dragon basement.

"At least we now know what they're after." Irma said.

"Oh, do we now?" Will said, "We don't know anything, besides that it has something to do with the elements, water and fire."

"Wow, great way to be a mood kill, Will." Irma said, "I was just trying to be a little bit optimistic."

Will sighed and went to sit on a box. Yan-Lin entered the basement.

"Hello, girls. And, have you gotten any further?"

"No, miss Lin. I'm afraid not." Caleb said.

"Well, let's see if I can put my age to good use." Yan-Lin said with a smile. "Or my common sense. Granddaughter, could you get us a map from that drawer?"

Hay-Lin opened the drawer and gave the map that was in it to Yan-Lin.

Yan-Lin opened the map, revealing to be blank.

"Ehm, there's nothing on it." Cornelia commented.

"Oh, is that so?" Yan-Lin said, "Perhaps some _light_ has to be cast on it first.

Will understood what Yan-Lin meant. This was the map she had once given to Hay-Lin, who had given it to Will, the one that showed the portals. Will once again got out the Heart, revealing Heatherfield. The locations of the portals were still visible.

"I'm going to get a pen." Yan-Lin said.

Yan-Lin left the room again.

"What do you think she wants to achieve with the old map?" Taranee asked.

"We'll see." Caleb replied.

Yan-Lin returned with a pen. She bowed over the map and drew two circles, the circles indicating where the rocks had fallen.

"These are the crash sites of the rocks. Maybe they have something in common, such as a longitude or latitude. Perhaps the coordinates are the key." Yan-Lin said.

"Frankly, grandma, we think they're there because the elements are at their strongest point there." Hay-Lin said.

"Hmm." Yan-Lin muttered, "Then I think it's best to see where the other elements are strongest. Will, if you'd please."

Will used the Heart and 4 small dots appeared. Two dots were in their appropriate circles.

"So, we still have 2 dots left." Taranee said, "Those are the targets. Now, the problem is…which one is it? Earth or Air?"

"That's the question, isn't it?" Irma said.

"Yes, captain obvious, yes it is." Cornelia responded, slightly annoyed.

"Stop it, you two." Yan-Lin said, ending the quarrelling before it could actually start. "We must remain in harmony now."

They all nodded. Harmony was essential.

…

She looked around, as she suddenly saw something had started to glow behind her. Her one visible eye seemed amazed, as she saw how a map appeared on a blank paper.

"How could I have been so stupid?" she whispered to herself, angrily.

The map showed 4 small dots, two being encircled.

"Ah, so they know our targets."

She watched carefully, perhaps something else would appear that she had to take care of. However, nothing seemed to happen. She thought about the gravity of this map. Her one visible eye contracted and then relaxed. A small laugh was heard.

"Perhaps this equals out the playing field a little bit. But for as long as we stay in the dark, we'll have the edge. And the odds will always be in our favour."

Napoleon appeared and walked over, he saw the map.

"That might be some trouble, darling."

"Not at all," She responded, "just leveling the playing field a bit. Also, even if they know the site…they can't stop the impact. Can they?"

"You have created the tablets in such a way that they can't be controlled after launch, yet can only reach the destined destination." Napoleon said, with rolling r's, "so I would say not."

If the mask wouldn't be there, Napoleon might've seen her smile, now he couldn't see a thing.

"Exactly. Even with this information, they can't stop us." She said with glee, but then her voice turned darker, "But if they would figure out a way, we will end this earlier."

"I thought you had planned to go there yourself once the tablets were sent?" Napoleon asked.

"Indeed, that is my intention. I want to see Heatherfield in a good state one last time before I…disappear. For that is the price we pay for this." She said, sounding slightly sad.

"But we'll stay with you, until the end." Napoleon said, reassuringly.

"And that's all I need." She said, before laughing as she looked at the map once again. "Besides, I just noticed they don't know _all_ our targets."

Napoleon rose an eyebrow and looked at the map as well. He saw what she meant and a small grin appeared on his old face. "I see."

…

"First was water, then fire. They're each other's opposites, so we can't use that option anymore." Will said, pondering.

Caleb was bent over the map, together with Yan-Lin, trying to figure out if the coordinates of the crash sites had a special meaning. Irma was calling her father, trying to get more information from him. Hay-Lin and Cornelia were sitting on a box, thinking of the situation.

"Perhaps we should split up and visit both sites?" Cornelia asked, "Perhaps there's something unusual there."

Will nodded. "Yes, that seems like a good idea."

"Okay, thanks dad." Irma said as she hung up. "It seems the police figured out what we already know. Which is absolutely nothing."

"I, too, think it's best to go to the remaining places and see if there's something suspicious about these places." Yan-Lin said. "Then we will come back here."

"Okay, Hay-Lin and Caleb, you go to the location of Air, then me and Cornelia will go to the location of Earth." Will ordered, "Irma and Taranee, I want you to check on the sites of Water and Fire. We must know exactly what they're doing at those sites."

They all nodded in response and went to their assigned locations.

Hay-Lin and Caleb walked to the highest building in Heatherfield.

"The highest building catches most wind." Caleb said, "I guess that's why this is the place where Air is strongest."

Hay-Lin slowly nodded. She could feel her powers growing stronger, just by being in this place. She felt some sort of danger hang in the air, as if someone was watching them.

"Caleb, I think somebody's watching us." She whispered.

Caleb rose an eyebrow. "How can we find the person that's watching us, without letting him or her notice?" He whispered back.

Hay-Lin shook her head. "I don't know. I bet it's that woman we met at Warmwater. I'll try to search for her."

Hay-Lin used the air to find the aura of the woman, but she couldn't find her. "She isn't here."

Caleb turned around, trying to find anybody seemingly out of place. He found nobody who fit that description. People were walking along, talking to other people, having lunch or reading the paper on a bench or on a table. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary.

"Are you sure somebody's watching us?" Caleb asked, receiving a nod from Hay-Lin. "Then they have blend in really well."

Hay-Lin tried looking for an aura that was out of place, but wasn't able to find any. But then, she noticed something.

"That can't be…" she whispered in shock.

"What's wrong?" Caleb asked.

Hay-Lin seemed confused. "Give me a second."

She searched for the thing she had found, but she couldn't find it. She sighed.

"It vanished."

"What was it, Hay-Lin?" Caleb asked.

"I thought I felt a familiar aura, but I can't seem to relocate it. It must've been my imagination." Hay-Lin replied, as she cheerily continued. "Come on, let's check the inside!"

One older man looked up. He had a grey beard and was wearing a brown coat, with a white shirt, beige pants and black shoes. That was a close one. He had nearly exposed himself to the Air Guardian, endangering his entire mission of spying on the two of them. He noticed how the two of them went inside the building. He exhaled and noticed a pearl of sweat was dripping down his right temple. He placed his finger against it and held it before his eyes, studying it.

"Interesting," he murmured, "I actually got scared for a second there. It's been a long while since I've felt fear."

Now that the two of them were inside the building, they could spent their time doing absolutely nothing. They wouldn't find anything. Neither would he. There was nothing there, yet. He looked at the sky as he turned a page of his paper. Soon, a tablet would strike this very place, marking the time for change had come. He smiled, sadly, as he looked at his paper. He recognized a picture of the tablets of water and fire. He looked at the title of the article.

"_Mysterious rocks crash into Heatherfield. Omen or coincidence?"_

_ A mystery to be solved,_

_ By John Lacoste._

"How amusing." The man said, a small grin on his face, "just try to solve the mystery. You'll fail anyway. Just five people know the meaning of these tablets. And we're not going to ruin the fun…"

Irma was at the beach, standing next to the rock. Again, the feeling of triumph was filling her mind. She was the proud owner of the element that covered 2/3rd of the entire world. She shook her head. What was she thinking? All elements were equal, and she knew it. Harmony between all elements was required for the world to be in balance. Irma closed her eyes and felt that, yet again, more water had come to Heatherfield, she extended her reach a small bit, and she could feel the water coming closer. She opened her eyes and imagined an enormous tidal wave coming closer, engulfing her and Heatherfield. She shouldn't feel triumphant. Water was widely considered an element of healing, but she knew it could also bring destruction. She sighed as she looked around. Nothing seemed to have changed. Irma inspected the rock, trying to find something that wasn't there before. She looked surprised as small blue letters appeared.

'_Irma…'_

Irma took a step back and saw them disappear. She was in shock. Was this rock…alive? Was it a messenger of some sort? Now that she thought about it, she didn't know whether or not these people were their enemies or their friends. Yes, they had told them that they couldn't stop them, but that didn't necessarily have to be bad. She came closer to the rock and again her own name appeared. But as she kept staring at it, more letters appeared.

'_You want to know the secret, don't you?'_

Irma didn't notice how she nodded and came closer.

'_Let me show you…'_

Irma came closer and her nose touched the rock. At the place where they had touched, a white light appeared. Irma's eyes became bigger, as a scène played in her mind.

She saw a devastated city, buildings had collapsed, cracks had scarred the landscape, fires were blazing in some houses, yet people were alive. She saw how they looked around, dazzled, and then noticed how they pointed towards her. She looked down, noticing how she was standing right above an enormous tidal wave, engulfing the scène, killing almost all the people she could see. Only those who had been lucky enough to be on high grounds survived this. Among them was a woman in dark blue robes, who was making movements with her hands, splitting the water in front of the building she was on, making it so that it went around it.

She fell back and saw how the words vanished and then how others reappeared.

'_Now you know…'_

Irma quickly ran towards the Silver Dragon, tears in her eyes. She had felt the destructive power of the water and the fear in the hearts of people, before the feeling disappeared in an instance when the water engulfed the devastated city…

Will and Cornelia were at the mountain foot, looking around and mostly up, to see if anything was out of the ordinary. Though, nothing was to be seen.

"It seems like nothing's wrong here." Cornelia said.

"I'm not so sure." Will responded, sounding alert, "I feel the energy of something being around here."

"Ah, so you've noticed me."

Will and Cornelia quickly turned around. They noticed someone standing behind them, even though she hadn't been standing there when they were looking around. This wasn't the woman they had talked to at Warmwater, even though she was wearing familiar clothing. Instead, she was wearing light blue robes instead of red robes.

"How did you do that? You weren't there when we looked around." Cornelia said, stupefied.

"Oh, but I have been here all along, right on this spot. It seems you simply didn't notice me." The woman said calmly, perhaps even cheery.

"How is it possible for us _not_ to notice somebody standing right there?" Cornelia asked, now slightly angered.

"Don't get angry now, dear girl." She said, raising a hand. "I thought you might want to know something. And you can ask them and I will answer if I can. Of course, some information is classified…"

"You're just taunting us." Will said, her face straight and not showing any emotion, "You want us to feel desperate, since we don't have any information while you do."

The mask was blocking the woman's face, yet Will knew that the woman had a grin on her face. The woman clapped her hands in a sarcastic manner.

"Well done. You seem to spot things as soon as our leader. Impressive." She said, this time meaning it.

Will got a small grin on her face. "And who might this leader be? The one we already met before? The one in the red robes?"

"Oh, Ignis? She would wish she could be the leader, but no, she's not." The woman replied, slightly amused.

Cornelia thought she had heard this voice before, yet she couldn't place her finger on it.

"Then, who is your leader?" Will asked, but then her voice got a demanding undertone. "Tell me!"

"Oh, you'll find out, just not now." The masked woman said cheerily. "But all…"

"All will be revealed in due time, we know. The woman in red robes, what did you call her, Ignis, said that as well." Cornelia said, slightly annoyed.

"Oh, so at first she tells us not to have fun, but then she starts having fun? That's kinda hypocritical, don't you think? Just wait till Agua hears this…" The masked woman said.

"If she's Ignis, then who are you? And who's Agua?" Will asked.

This got her a slight laugh from the masked woman.

"They call me Odor. You already know Ignis. And there's another one of us as well, she's Agua. Don't worry, you'll meet her as well." Odor said, "We know your every step."

"Now I know!" Cornelia suddenly exclaimed, getting a confused look from Will, while Odor turned her head.

Will noticed that Odor was showing a slight hint of fear, but that was gone pretty quickly.

"You're the one that talked to us when we were discussing the rock that fell on the beach at the Silver Dragon the first time!" Cornelia said.

Will remembered. When the rock had crashed into the beach, they had gathered to talk about the situation. A voice had interrupted them, which was this Odor woman.

"Very good of you to notice, dear girl." Odor said, sounding happy and perhaps even a bit proud. "Now… I have to go. But I'll tell you one thing. You won't find anything here. Can you find out what our next target is? And can you stop it?"

A gust of wind appeared and it seemed that she disappeared with it, while they heard a whisper through the air.

"By the way, the answers are no, you won't find out what the target is and no, you can't stop it. Ok, bye." Odor's voice said cheerily.

"Is it just me, or do both Ignis and Odor _have _to leave while mocking us?" Cornelia asked.

"It's not just you." Will said. "But I notice they are kind of…I don't know. Would you call it kind?"

"I wouldn't necessarily call it kind, but, indeed, they are peculiar. I mean, they haven't threatened _us_ once. They just say we can't stop them from doing what they're doing, whatever that is." Cornelia replied, "if that makes any sense."

"Yes, it does." Will said, "I guess we should tell the others about this encounter."

Cornelia agreed and they both headed to the Silver Dragon.

Taranee had arrived at Warmwater. She saw the rock and was amazed by the amount of damage it had caused. Which was about nothing. There was only a small hole in the ground, in which the rock was stuck. She went closer to the rock and felt how a peculiar feeling went through her. She had known this would happen. She had felt Irma's emotions when Irma had been near the rock at the beach. It was a feeling of disgust, yet of triumph as well. It felt as if she could conquer the world at this moment. However, Taranee shook her head. She knew that she shouldn't feel this triumphant, because there was nothing to be triumphant about. Another wave of triumph fell over her: she was the owner of the element that could stop fire from burning and destroying. Yet, Taranee didn't fall for this trick. She knew that fire wasn't solely about destruction, it could also bring warmth and happiness as well. She studied the rock some more, but couldn't find anything. She closed her eyes and felt that the magma, buried deep beneath the earth under her feet, was starting to get closer to the earth's surface, ready to explode and consume all living beings in the vicinity. She opened her eyes again and stared right into a word, created out of small flames, which were dancing on the rock.

'_Taranee…'_

Taranee was surprised. What was this.

_´You are a clever girl, so I think you wish to understand…'_

Taranee nodded and came closer, stretching her hand, as if she were in trance.

'_Let me show you…'_

Taranee touched the rock and a scène started playing in her mind. She saw a ruined city, buildings laying on the ground, while fire was consuming the buildings. She saw some people burning to death, or falling out of the buildings. As she looked up to the sky, she saw dark clouds, created from the smoke the fires left as they burned through everything they could. As burning rocks fell from the sky, creating openings in the smoke clouds, she noticed two women, one in red robes and one in green robes, standing on top of a building, which was still standing. Both made movements with their hands and arms, and the rocks seemed to slow down, very steadily, and the fire seemed to be less. However, they could not attend to all rocks and one was coming at the women. While the woman in red robes created openings in the flames for people to reach the building they were protecting, the woman in green robes quickly cut the rock in half and the two separate rocks fell down to the sides, crushing the people which were on the ground as they tried to make their escapes…

Taranee let go of the rock and took two steps back. The scène she had seen was horrifying her. More words appeared on the rock.

'_Now you know, but you wish you would have never known…'_

Taranee quickly ran back to the Silver Dragon, distressed, as she had felt the emotions of the two women, seeing how they tried their best to save as many people as possible, yet failed in saving many, of pain, suffering and fear.

Taranee ran into the Silver Dragon basement and noticed everybody was there. Everybody was looking grim, and Irma was crying.

"Why is Irma crying?" Taranee asked.

By hearing this, Irma started crying even harder. Cornelia went to Taranee and whispered what Irma had experienced at the rock at the beach. Taranee sighed.

"I have experienced something similar." Taranee admitted.

She told what she had seen.

"So there was someone with green robes and someone with dark blue robes in Taranee's and Irma's dream, respectively? I dare say one of them is the leader." Caleb said.

The girls nodded in agreement, though Yan-Lin didn't seem a to convinced.

"We've met one of the other's at the mountain site. It wasn't the one in red robes, who is named Ignis, it was someone in light blue robes, called Odor. She mentioned a third member as well, named Agua. But from these visions you two have had, it seems there's also a fourth member, either the one with green robes or with dark blue robes, as we don't know who Agua is." Will explained.

"We didn't notice anybody fitting those descriptions at the highest building. Though I had the feeling we were being watched." Hay-Lin.

"I guess we can't do any more today. We've tried the best we could, but we couldn't find anything. Yet again, we haven't achieved anything." Irma said, no longer sad, instead sounding angry, "I hate these guys. I mean, Nerissa and Phobos at least made their intentions clear and we gained something every time we fought. But this time we're being held out of the fight! We're constantly 2 steps behind."

"We're being watched," Yan-Lin said, "They know everything we do and adapt to that."

Irma left, clearly frustrated. The rest decided to go home as well. Cornelia walked home and when she arrived, she let herself fall on the bench and sighed. She wondered how long this senseless search for answers would take. She was getting tired of it and it was so unsatisfying. Lillian came towards her.

"I'm sure you won't go with us to grandma Catherine, do you?"

Cornelia rose an eyebrow.

"What are you talking about?"

"We got a letter from grandma Catherine. You know, the one that lives in Florida." Lillian explained.

"Oh, yeah, what was in the letter?" Cornelia asked.

"An invitation to stay with her for a week. However, she said you weren't allowed to come! Haha, grandma loves me more than you!" Lillian said laughingly, as she stuck out her tongue.

"What? She didn't invite me, but she did invite mom? Mom hates her!" Cornelia said, flabbergasted and angry.

"I know. Mom and dad argued about that, but eventually mom went along." Lillian said, "but even so, you can't come!"

"I…but…" Cornelia murmured, but eventually sighed.

'_Dear Mr. and Mrs. Lin…falsification of history…The Lins are going on a cruise and who knows what they are planning with the rest of our loved ones? You shall not interfere. You can not!'_

Cornelia's eyes got wider. Another step to getting rid of their loved ones. Should she allow this? The others had, so she decided it was best to go along with it for now.

"And mom and dad are okay with it? They just allow me to stay here, all on my own?"

Lillian was quiet for a little while, but then smiled.

"Yep, they didn't even think about you coming along! I hope you're going to have a good time, here on your own!"

She ran away, but then stopped in the middle of the door opening.

"Although it would be quite nice if I would be allowed to stay home alone as well."

Napoleon entered the room, looking terrified from Cornelia to Lillian. Cornelia remembered that Lillian was the Heart of Earth.

"But not now, right? You wouldn't want to miss the opportunity to go to Florida?" Cornelia said.

"You're right about that." Lillian said, sounding rather amazed. "I'm actually agreeing with Cornelia…what is becoming of me?"

She then ran away.

"Thanks Napoleon, if she would have wished she could stay…nasty things could have happened. There are nasty things happening now, but I can't use her here as well…" Cornelia said.

"Nasty things?" Napoleon said, sounding scared, "is Nerissa free? Is she coming for me again?"

He jumped on the couch and looked out of the window, scared.

"No, she isn't free." Cornelia said, clearly reassuring Napoleon, who et out a sigh, "It's about those rocks."

"What's up with them?" Napoleon asked, clearly intrigued.

"They have some connection to each other and three people, but we don't know what that is. We only know these three people are planning something and that the rocks play a part in it." Cornelia said.

Napoleon let his head hang as he got off the couch again and went to the door.

"I don't know anything about that, unfortunately."

He walked closer to the door when his head suddenly shot up. Cornelia rose an eyebrow.

"Something wrong?"

Napoleon shook his head and left the room, leaving Cornelia to think and contacting the other girls telepathically, to tell them what had just happened.

…

Napoleon wandered into Cornelia's own room, to see that the window was open. He had had a moment of supreme knowledge. It was as if everything had just been revealed to him in a second. He sighed as he looked at the bed.

"So, you are here. I expect that my 'revelation' had been calculated into your plan?"

A woman in dark blue robes was sitting on the bed.

"Agua, I assume. Just tell me why you are here." Napoleon said, slightly demanding.

Agua rose. "If you so wish. But first, a question. Why didn't you say Cornelia about us?"

Now, it was Napoleon's time to smile. "Ah. Because I can see your intentions are clear and humble. It seems the universe has accepted it. Therefore, I shall not try to halt it."

Agua sighed. "That's a worry off of my back."

Napoleon rose an eyebrow. "Did you think I would tell everything? Please, you know I look at each matter from different sides. Although I hoped there would be another way…"

"We all did, Napoleon. But there wasn't. We tried to, but they all had inadequate results. Phobos was our mistake, and then we had to make Nerissa and the others stop him, but then Nerissa went power mad…It's all a big mess. This was the only option we had left." Agua explained.

"I see why you are getting all of the Guardian's loved ones out of the city. I agree. Although I do hope you're not planning on…?" Napoleon asked, but before he could finish his sentence, he was interrupted.

"We are looking into that. But as it seems now, we aren't planning on doing that." Agua said.

"Good, I hope you succeed, doll. But I also hope the others succeed…" Napoleon said, sounding sad.

"We do too, Napoleon. But we're trying to make sure both parties win." Agua said with a nod.

She went to the window and closed it. Agua's body got enveloped by water and she disappeared, leaving behind a small puddle of water. Napoleon walked away, sighing, his eyes sad.

…

"_Are you sure?" _Will asked.

"_Definitely."_ Cornelia responded. _"My parents are the next to go."_

"_Then that only leaves Will's mom and my parents."_ Taranee said, _"And it probably won't take long before they are lured out of the city as well. Something's going to happen in Heatherfield and those rocks have something to do with them. Yet, our loved ones aren't allowed to be here."_

"_Perhaps they want to kill us and don't want anybody to interfere?"_ Hay-Lin suggested, slightly scared.

"_I don't think so._" Will said.

"_Yeah, it's not like our loved ones would be such a threat to these three."_ Irma said.

"_These four. Remember, the lady with green robes?"_ Will responded.

"_Oh, right. Forgot about her. Probably because we never met her."_ Irma responded.

"_If she's in the shadows, she's even more intimidating than if she just shows herself. We don't know who she is, or where she is. That makes her even more dangerous."_ Cornelia said.

"_Guys, I have this feeling that something's going to happen tomorrow. And I think you know what I mean by that."_ Hay-Lin said.

"_Another rock."_ The rest of them responded.

…

"Why did you inform Napoleon?" The bearded man asked.

"I did not have such intentions at first, I must confess." She said, as she looked at him.

"But why?" He asked again.

She sighed.

"He got informed by the Earth Guardian. And since he already knew, he got his, what did he call it, 'moment of supreme knowledge'."

"But according to Agua, he didn't know beforehand!" The man said.

Napoleon entered the room and went to Her. She stroke his head.

"You should know. Just think about it for a second." She said.

The man thought for a while and looked at Napoleon. Then, it suddenly hit him. He sighed in defeat.

"Of course. How could I have been so stupid. He did know. Just not at that moment."

A girlish giggle was heard, a giggle that didn't fit this masked woman, who felt rather cold. The man's neck hairs rose, which She noticed.

"Oh, scared?"

"That giggle doesn't fit you." He calmly responded.

She didn't laugh.

"It's not my fault for becoming this." She dryly responded.

"I know. But it'll soon be over." He responded.

Now, she did laugh. "Yes…it will end."

She looked out of the window and saw the devastated buildings. Memories of dying people, burning to death in front of her eyes, and of collapsing buildings emerged in her mind. She quickly hid them again. She didn't have the time to think about that, or to grief. They had to do what had to be done, and she would take her part in that. And nobody would stop them. She felt a hand on her shoulder and she turned around. She found herself looking into the eyes of the bearded old man. His hand went under her chin and pulled her to him, gently and not too fast. As they closed in, her hand took his. She shook it away and walked past him. He sighed.

"You know we can't be together. I have explained this to you before." She said, although her voice betrayed her true feelings.

"So because everything is going to end, that doesn't mean we can have a moment of joy in this forsaken place? I thought that you, out of all people, should know that joy is to be cherished, even if it is for only a small amount of time." He retorted, though not sounding mad.

She sighed and turned to him, her mask removed. She noticed how he tried not to distort his face.

"Do you really want this." She asked. "For I can see through your attempts of trying to not distort your face."

He walked up to Her and kissed her on the mouth. She stood on Her toes and then, when he broke the kiss, She fell back again.

"I do." He said, determined.

She put her mask back on and walked away.

"She'll come 'round. Don't worry about it." Napoleon said. "She just doesn't want to bind herself to someone, as it will all end soon."

He sighed.

"I know. I just want Her to be happy for once. Even for a slight moment, before it ends, I want Her to be happy."

"And She is. She put on her mask to hide her feelings. I just know that." Napoleon said. "Now back to work."

The man smiled at Napoleon and stroke him. A white flash appeared behind him and he walked through it, disappearing instantly.

…

The next day, the group decided to assemble at the Silver Dragon in the afternoon. As they arrived one by one, they all exchanged dark looks. They now all had that dark feeling that something was going to happen today. Cornelia entered last.

"Well, my parents are gone and they took Lillian with them. Napoleon stayed as I stayed."

The rest nodded.

"I told him the situation. He didn't know anything either."

Will sighed.

"Yesterday I hoped he might know something. I mean, he did know about Lillian's situation."

Taranee nodded.

"I had been thinking about that as well. Sad to hear that he doesn't know anything either. But I've been thinking about something else. Is there a pattern between the rocks falling? Like, do they fall from the sky at a set time?"

Hay-Lin snapped her fingers, getting everybody's attention.

"There is! They both fell down at the end of the afternoon!"

Taranee smiled at Will, who smiled back.

"It's going to happen again, today."

"What time is it?" Irma asked.

"It's…" Irma said, while she took a look at her watch, "16:25."

"We better split up to cover both potential crash sites!" Caleb said.

"Caleb, don't you know the quote: 'united we stand, divided we fall'? If those three are there and they want to fight us, we have no chance!" Cornelia said.

"I didn't think of that…" Caleb responded.

"Wait, Cornelia thought of something, and Caleb didn't? What is this world getting too?" Irma said, faking shock.

"Knock it off, guys. It's time to get moving!" Will yelled.

At that moment, a small gust of wind entered through the room, small drops of water fell from beneath the window and it started getting hotter.

"Do any of you notice that? It's getting hotter." Irma suddenly said, a small pearl falling down her temple.

"Yeah. Did the heater suddenly go mad or what?"

"Or what." A voice said.

Flames emerged in the middle of the room, dividing the group. Ignis appeared from the flames.

"Ignis!" the girls yelled.

"And don't forget us." Two voices said, simultaneously.

Odor and Agua appeared as well.

"I'm aware we haven't met yet. I'm Agua." Agua said, smiling at her hilariously bad timing for courtesy.

"Why are you here?" Hay-Lin asked.

"Can't you tell?" Odor asked, slightly annoyed.

"Of course. The rock is about to crash!" Taranee said.

"And you're not interfering. You're staying right here!" Ignis said.

"Don't be so bossy, Ignis." Agua said, getting her a stare in her direction from Ignis.

"Don't start now, Agua. We will stop them here, until our plan is one step closer to succeed." Odor responded.

In the distance, they heard a bang of a clock, indicating it was 16:30. Right after the bang of the clock had faded away, another bang was heard. This went together with a flash.

"There it is. Our tablet has arrived. Now you stay here until it has soundly crashed into the forest." Ignis said, obviously gloating.

"Make us!" Hay-Lin said, as she launched a gust of wind at Ignis.

Odor raised her hand and effortlessly stopped the gust. She pushed her hand slightly forward, creating a gust of wind, nearly five times as strong as the one Hay-Lin had shot. The girls and Caleb were shot into the wall and created small traces of them, as they were slowly but surely pushed through it. Odor stopped the gust and they fell on the ground. Will looked up and stared at Odor's mask.

"You're no match for us. And definitely not in this form." Ignis said. "But you're not Uniting this time."

At that moment, Yan-Lin opened the door.

"Girls! The rock has appeared and is heading towards the forest…"

She looked at the scène, as the three masked women turned to her. Her eyes got bigger. Will quickly got up and shot lightning from her hands at all three of them. They seemed to suffer slight pain.

"Oh, stop this!" Agua said, faking pain and fear.

She made a slashing move with her hand and water shot from a pipe and blasted Will aside. In the distance, a bang was heard and sirens followed soon.

"Seems like it has happened. We aren't needed here anymore." Agua said. "Let's go."

With that, Agua disappeared as water surrounded, leaving behind a small pool, Ignis disappeared in fire and Odor transformed into air and disappeared as well.

The Guardians and Caleb rose.

"We need to get to the crash site." Caleb said.

The girls nodded and quickly got up. Will leant some of her life-force to Yan-Lin, so she could teletransport all of them to the crash site. They looked in amazement as part of the forest was ablaze, yet none of the animals seemed to notice. They looked at the rock, which showed the symbol of earth, which was slowly fading away at a steady pace. It would be gone before anybody else could see it. Will sighed.

"They are to powerful if we don't take them on in Guardian form. And we couldn't stop them this time. However," her voice got darker, "we know their last target. And we'll stop them right there in their tracks."

Up in the air, Agua, Ignis and Odor were looking down on the group.

"You will try. Everything is going according to plan…"

…

"Just two more to go." Napoleon said to Her.

"And then our grand scheme will finally, truly begin. And nothing will get in our way." She said.

"You start sounding like a villain more and more every day. Nerissa…" Napoleon said, with a small grin on his face.

"Don't you _dare_ compare me to a villain, especially not Nerissa." She said. "She was a power mad maniac. I, no, _we_, have a very different goal in mind."

Napoleon nodded serenely.

"And as you have said, nothing will get in our way."

"Especially not five teenage girls!" She said, sounding slightly angry, "I won't accept defeat!"

"Calm down." Napoleon said, "I'm telling you that they can't stop us. They have no idea what's happening, or what the tablets are for. Us six are the only ones."

At these words, She started to breathe a little bit softer.

"You are right, Napoleon. Sometimes I think you are the only thing that keeps me sane."

"If you would go insane, the universe stands no chance." He said, while a snicker has heard from Her, "But I think I'm not the _only_ thing that's keeping you sane." He added with glee.

This got him a stare in his direction as a broken toaster flew towards his head. He quickly dodged.

"Shut it."

She looked out of the window, towards the devastated ruins and a small rose, which was laying on top of a building.

"I will _not_ accept defeat. You can count on that…" She said darkly, as Napoleon looked at the rose as well, and closed his eyes.


	5. The Tablet of Air

The firemen and the police arrived at the scène. They quickly rushed over to the girls, not noticing the three floating women above them. The girls, Caleb and Yan-Lin turned around.

"Are you okay? We saw that rock crash near the forest so we quickly rushed over." One of the policemen asked, while the firemen quickly started to try and control the fire.

"Why aren't the animals fleeing?" One of them asked.

"Perhaps they know we're so good that they aren't in danger!" another one said cheerily, while the others shook their heads.

While Will and the others were talking with the policemen, thinking of a credible story to tell them, because magic doesn't really cut it on earth, Cornelia wandered away. It seemed as though the rock was calling her. What did Ignis call the rock again, when they were at the Silver Dragon? A tablet? She had heard about this tablet calling to their respective element owners, Irma for the water tablet and Taranee for the fire tablet, and giving them visions. She knew she shouldn't go towards the tablet. But somehow, she wondered, if it would give her a vision too. She got closer to the tablet and looked around, as if in some sort of trance, to see if anybody was looking. Nobody was, however, so she continued her way to the tablet.

…

Ignis, Agua and Odor were still flying high up in the air.

"My, oh my. It seems like our Earth Guardian can't resist the temptation." Agua said.

Ignis sighed. "She will experience the same as the others. This was one side effect we, unfortunately, couldn't get rid of."

Odor placed a hand on Ignis's shoulder.

"Perhaps this side effect might eventually work in our favour."

Ignis knew what she thought, but Ignis shook her head.

"Deep down, you know it won't happen. They will fight for their beliefs. And they should. But we will fight for ours. But this time, both of us must win, since we both have good intentions. Sometimes, people fight with each other, trying to win because of the wrong reasons. This is quite different. We fight with the right intentions, and so do they. We must…"

"You can stop now, Ignis. We get it. Both are right, so there shouldn't be a victor." Agua said, clearly annoyed.

Ignis sighed. "Fine. Let's just enjoy the show the Earth Guardian is about to show herself. Although I don't really want to see it…"

Odor and Agua looked away, thinking of the scenes the Earth Guardian might see, not knowing exactly what it meant. They, however, did.

"Me neither." They said simultaneously.

"Then let us leave." Ignis said.

Soon, the three of them disappeared.

…

Cornelia walked towards the tablet, advancing ever so slowly.

'_Cornelia…'_

Cornelia wasn't surprised by the letters that had appeared just now. She knew from Irma and Taranee that it would ask her if she would want to see the scène, if she would want to understand.

'_You were drawn here by your own curiosity, so you want to know…'_

Taranee looked around, noticing Cornelia was gone. She saw Cornelia go to the tablet and could vaguely see the letters on the tablet.

"Cornelia, no!"

This yell got the attention of the others.

Cornelia stretched her hand towards the tablet. Her pupils widened as a white glow appeared in her mind. At the same moment, Taranee had tried to contact her telepathically and sending this to the rest, which resulted in W.I.T.H. to experience the same vision.

They hovered over a blazing city. In the distance, a woman was creating a shield made of water around a damaged building, with a small opening at the front, towards them. In the opening, another woman was creating a passage through the fire, to below where they were. The five of them looked down and saw the woman in green run alongside a man with a small beard, running through a building. Flames chased them and walls crumbled behind them. Both had a child on their backs. The woman signaled to stop and the man stopped as well. They couldn't see if they were saying something and if they did, what they said, but the man went to stand next of the woman. The earth underneath their feet came loose and they shot through the building on a plate of earth. As they got near the exit, the ceiling came down. The woman in green robes quickly called for vines, which stopped the falling boulders in their tracks. She gave the child to the man and shot them out of the building, over the flames right to the passage. A rumbling sound was heard and the woman looked up and noticed more boulders falling down. She called for more vines, which blocked them. She suddenly looked backwards, as more rumbling was heard. After this part, something strange occurred. The part of the scène with the woman disappeared completely and the man seemed to shout something. A molten rock falling from the sky hit the rock the man and the two children were sitting on, crushing it into two pieces. The children cried as they fell towards the burning ground. A woman flew towards them and caught them, then flying back to the ground and dropping them off. She created a gust of wind to save the man as well. She seemed to talk to him and then both of them looked towards the place the scène with the woman in green had just taken place.

Yan-Lin picked up her granddaughter, while Caleb helped Cornelia.

"Is everything alright?"

Both Hay-Lin and Cornelia nodded. They looked at each other, stupefied. Caleb helped Cornelia rise up and they walked back to the rest of the group.

"What just happened?" a police officer asked.

'_Nothing of your concerns, nothing of your concerns!'_ Irma thought, seeking to influence the police officer.

"I guess it's nothing of my concerns. If you'll excuse me, I have to make sure nobody gets close to the meteor." He said, scurrying off.

"Let's go back to the Silver Dragon, children."

They walked back, but it was a long trip, as al of the girls thought about their vision. Cornelia didn't seem to want to remember it, feeling bad, while the other four felt sad.

"All those people in that city…luckily those two kids were saved." Hay-Lin whispered.

"By Odor…" Taranee said. "And I bet the water shield was done by Agua and the opening in the fire by Ignis. They saved them…"

Everybody was silent now. Only just did they realize that the visions they had seen or had been told about were about their enemies. Maybe they weren't their enemies after all. Perhaps the tablets held something to help mankind. Just perhaps, they might try to help them, but have to stop them from interfering at this stage, since they didn't know.

…

The man walked into the room. He saw Napoleon laying on a desk, with both eyes closed. He opened an eye and saw who it was. He immediately rose.

"She's waiting for you in her chamber. It seems she's…come around."

The man rose an eyebrow.

"You'll see." Napoleon replied.

The man glared at Napoleon for a few seconds who only smiled at him. He then continued to Her chamber. He noticed the door was closed and knocked on the door three times. The door opened slightly. He opened the door and stepped in. He noticed She was standing with her back towards him.

"Take off your shoes, please."

He did so.

"You wanted to see me?" He asked, even though he already had a feeling where this was going.

She turned around and She showed that She was wearing a different mask than before. This mask only covered the part of her face she wished to conceal.

"Did you mean what you said last time?" She whispered.

"Yes, I did." He said.

She smiled. She got closer to him, her one brown eye, this time not partly concealed and clearly visible, looking at him.

"You were right. I do cherish joy." She whispered, as she kissed him on the mouth, "even if it is for this small moment."

She wrapped her arms around his neck. He gladly returned her kiss. He had always hoped to see her happy again. After her 'accident' she never smiled, she had never been happy. Only determined. Determined to end this as fast as possible.

She unwrapped her arms, but didn't end the kiss. She took of her robe. He broke the kiss and looked at her.

"You are beautiful."

She smiled at him. He looked into that one brown eye, seeing it shine. She was happy. And, therefore, he was happy as well. She kissed him again and he accepted it. Her hands went towards his blouse and She unbuttoned it, allowing Her to stroke his chest. She broke the kiss.

"This isn't fair," She whispered, letting him raise an eyebrow, "for I am showing myself to you, but you're not showing yourself to me."

He smiled and he knew where this would end. He took of his jack and his blouse. She whispered something he couldn't hear as She walked backwards. A bed came down from the wall and without interrupting her movements, she went to sit on the bed, right as it had settled itself on the floor. She waved for him to come over. He walked towards her and she wrapped her arms around him and pulled him on the bed. He went through her hair. Suddenly, she seemed sad.

"She could have seen this as a betrayal. I shouldn't have…"

Her sentence was cut short by a kiss.

"She knows that this is to make you happy. One last time. She would have wanted you to be happy. _Trust me_." He replied, whispering.

It seemed like the world had gone silent, and only the two of them were able to make any sound. She closed her eyes. He was right. She went to his belt and opened it, as he kissed her. His tongue entered her mouth and she felt strange. She hadn't felt this way in a long time, so now that she felt it again, she felt extra excited.

She pulled down his pants and he broke the kiss. He stroke her arms and looked at her one eye. For a moment, Her mask moved and seemed to let go of Her face, but She quickly grabbed it, going over his belly with her nails. His face distorted at the slight pain. She seemed sad.

"I ruined it." She sadly said.

She tried getting up, but was pulled down again. This time, Her mask really let go and fell next of the bed. She was laying on top of him, both were only wearing their underwear, while her distorted face was looking right in his. She didn't notice any signs of him trying to not look at her, instead, he kissed her.

"You are beautiful, and not even this wound can change that."

She smiled.

"Do you…have feelings for me?"

"Isn't it normally the guy who has to ask that?" He said, clearly trying to annoy her.

"Just give me an answer." She responded, as she kissed his chest.

"Do you?" He asked, nearly silent.

She stopped halfway through a kiss.

"Don't reply to me with a question of your own. Now answer the question." She responded briskly.

He looked at her, and she looked at him.

"I have feelings for your soft side, the side you have been showing me tonight. But you are also this bossy woman, as you demonstrated just now."

She closed her eyes and sighed.

"So now I ruined it by asking this question…"

"However, these two can't be separated. So I guess I have to live with it." He continued.

She opened her eyes and looked at him. His face didn't show any emotion, but she knew what he meant. She smiled at him and kissed him, wrapping his arms around him. He wrapped his arms around her as well, and opened her bra. She broke the kiss and rose a little bit, allowing the strings of her bra to roll down her arms. He took the strings and played with them, getting him an annoyed look, which he responded with a smile.

"Why did she keep going with you?" She asked, mockingly.

"You'll find out." He replied as he took off the bra and kissed her again.

She rolled over and took him with her. He stroke her breasts gently. She kissed him in the neck.

"Let me find out…" She whispered in his ear.

She took the sheet of the bed and went underneath it. She had it cover the parts a man would be most interested in, but kept her hands above the sheet. She drew circles on his chest with her finger. He looked at her and saw that her eyes weren't looking at him, but at the door opening.

'_Please don't be one of the girls, not now. Please!'_

He slowly turned towards the door opening, but there was nobody visible. He looked down and saw Napoleon.

"I guess I'll leave you alone." He said with a smile.

"Moodkill." The man whispered, getting a laugh from Her.

She tapped the bed. He went under the sheet as well. She kept drawing circles on his chest. He stroke her arm. He bent over and kissed her in her neck. He noticed her panties were laying on the ground next to the bed. He looked at her. From this side, he didn't see the disfigured part of her face, which made her look even more beautiful. She looked at him with her one eye, her eye shining, her cheek red and hot, seemingly glowing. He knew he was looking at her the same way, and that his cheek, too, was red and hot. He bent over her and lay on top of her. He stroke her breast. It seemed She was about to give a silent moan, so he kissed her. She seemed surprised. It didn't take long for his underpants to be on the ground next of the bed as well, and they started their dance with another kiss.

…

W.I.T.C.H. had assembled at the Silver Dragon, but none of them were happy. They had explained what they had seen to Yan-Lin and Caleb, as well as their thoughts about them being Ignis, Odor and Agua. Yan-Lin and Caleb were looking sad at the girls. They hadn't experienced their vision, but they knew it was strange and delusional to see their enemies saving people. If they were truly evil, they would destroy the world, not save the people in it.

Will was staring out of the window. She closed her eyes and thought. She seemed asleep. Nobody disturbed her, seeing all of them were thinking and processing this new information in their own way. Suddenly, Will opened her eyes.

"We have questions. And who do we go to when we have those?" She said, as she rose and got out the Heart.

She created a fold, which led to a place all of them thought off.

Kandrakar.

Will went through the portal and stared right at the meditating man in the middle of the room. The rest followed suit and stared at him as well.

"I can see you are troubled, Guardians." The Oracle said solemnly, "perhaps I have some information for you."

He opened his eyes and got out of his meditation. He rose and led the girls, Yan-Lin and Caleb to a chamber with a globe in the middle. It was an image of Earth.

"I have studied the space around Earth, searching for an explanation for the appearance of these rocks. I believe they are called tablets by them?"

This got him a nod from all of them.

"It seems these rocks appear above Heatherfield every 2 days, in the afternoon of the second day. 6 days have passed and 3 rocks have fallen. _But…_"

"There's always a but, isn't there?" Irma asked, not really expecting an answer.

"It seems these three rocks are connected to each other in some magical way. It seemed like a timer to me when I first encountered it. I managed to see into these rocks, with great difficulty, and I indeed found a timer. However, there's something peculiar about it. Every rock carried a timer counting down to a certain time. I don't know precisely which time, but it's somewhere in the coming four days." The Oracle continued.

"They are all counting down to the same moment." Will replied.

"Indeed." Yan-Lin said, "the question is, to what?"

The Oracle sighed. "I don't know. It is very unclear. I think only they have the true answers. You will need to find them. Take them down and ask them what it is for. If this trend continues, the day after tomorrow, another tablet will crash into Heatherfield. And, talking about that, there's something else about that. It seems none of the crashes have had any calamities. It never hit anything on its way to Earth. Not even a butterfly."

"You can easily say 'take them down'," Cornelia replied, annoyed and completely ignoring the last statement, which Taranee found very interesting, "but that's easier said than done! They simply ignored us in our normal forms. I don't think going Guardian will change the tides in our favour."

"I agree with Corny for once." Irma said. "What's becoming of me?"

"I don't think that's the biggest concern. We would have to try anyway, we're not for nothing the Guardians. We should at least try to protect Earth with all our might. I think our biggest concern is that they're in Heatherfield. If we fight them here, we have a greater chance than ever to be spotted." Taranee said.

"That is true." Will said. "But it seems they aren't evil, Oracle. We saw visions, which might just be them _saving_ people. Why would they at first save people and then try to destroy them. That city might just be of a city destroyed by a volcano. I though about it and it makes sense. It would explain the earthquakes and the molten rocks falling from the sky, as well as the burning houses. So why would they try to destroy that what they first saved. They don't seem power mad such as Nerissa."

The Oracle sighed.

"Tell me about these visions."

So it was said, so it was done. Irma told hers, Taranee told hers and together they told the last one, and their suspicions about Ignis, Odor, Agua and some woman in green robes actually being the saviors of the city and the people in it.

"Strange." Was everything the Oracle could bring out. "This indeed makes it a lot more complicated. Are you absolutely sure these saviors of the city are really Ignis and the others?"

They all shook their heads.

"Well, no, but…" Hay-Lin started.

"Perhaps these visions are to tamper with your minds. To make you think they are good, so that you won't try to interfere." The Oracle suggested.

"That could actually make sense." Caleb said. "If you don't fight them because you think they are good, they get to do everything they want without resistance. Until it is too late."

"We won't let that happen." Will said, determined.

Everybody stared at the Guardian Leader, who only seemed to emit determination from herself.

"We'll take them down. Act first, questions later. They did attack us when we tried to go to the crash sites, so they obviously don't want us there. If they are good, why don't they allow us to help? We are good as well, we should be their allies. If they have noble intentions, we will help them. Just like we helped countless others." Will said, looking at Caleb, giving him a small smile, which he replied with a smile of his own. "They don't want us interfering, and I doubt it is because they don't want us to help them. It must be something sinister. Something bigger than we can see. And we shouldn't be able to see it, for we will stop it before it can happen."

She turned to the other girls and stretched her arm. "Are you with me?"

One by one, the girls nodded and placed their hands on Will's. Yan-Lin, Caleb and even the Oracle joined in as well.

"Well said, Will." Yan-Lin said.

"Then let's get to business!" Irma said.

They said their goodbye's to the Oracle and Will created a fold, folding them back to the Silver Dragon.

…

"What did you say?" Ignis asked, nearly infuriated.

"They're gone! They vanished when I closed my eyes for a second to scratch my head and…" Agua said.

"You closed you are eyes and let them escape, because you had an _itch?_" Ignis said, now sounding mad.

"I'm sure they just went through a portal." Agua replied, sounding annoyed.

"'_They just went through a portal'_" Ignis said mockingly, "It means they could be on an entire different world, and the problem is: we don't know which!"

"They will return to Earth," Odor said calmly, "besides, they're probably on either Metamoor or Kanrakar."

Ignis sat down on the ground and sat there for a minute, just breathing.

"It's fine." She said, although it sounded as if she was nearing a mental breakdown. "I'll just track them again. But please let this be the last time, I don't really like being your personal tracking device."

"Fine. Not like we'll be needing it after this." Agua said.

Ignis put her fingers against her temples. She concentrated for a second. Agua and Odor noticed how her right eye became red, even through the mask. Ignis her eye changed her vision. She could see from another point of view. It was like a camera, you could guide it around and look at it from different angles, though it was slightly different. Ignis herself didn't move and the people she searched for lit up in red amongst the masses.

"They are all in their beds at the moment. They're at their own homes." Ignis said.

The red glow diminished and she sighed. Agua sat on the ground as well and Odor looked of the rooftop to the streets of Heatherfield by night. Cars were visible, as well as some people. She saw how shops were closing, while others were only just opening. She sighed and sat with Ignis and Agua.

"You seem troubled." Ignis said, "What's wrong?"

"We're doing the right thing, right?" Odor said, looking out over Heatherfield, "We're saving them, right?"

Ignis smiled, although it wasn't visible to the rest.

"Yes, we're saving them." Ignis said, reassuring her.

She couldn't see it, but she knew Odor had a small smile on her face.

…

The next day, holiday was over and school began again. Irma had been forced by her dad to prepare herself and make extra exercises for different subjects, including math.

"I can't believe dad actually made me do that!" Irma exclaimed. "Yesterday when I came home, I wanted to take a drink and he _actually made me make a math exercise_ before he allowed me to take the drink out of the fridge! Seriously? I mean, come on! That's just insane!"

"Your father is evil." Will said.

"No, math is evil." Irma replied, getting her laughter of the rest.

The day at school was long and boring, only enlightened by Caleb who was around.

Will suddenly remembered that she had to call Matt and keep him up-to-date.

She dialed his number, walking off to a place where their chat would be private.

"Oh, he's going to be so mad at me for not having called him in 4 days. Oh, what will he say? He'll be mad, I know it!" She said, insecure.

"He'll say that he isn't mad and that it is understandable, because I think you've been doing a lot." Matt said through the other side of the phone.

"Oh." Will said, "Well, this is quite awkward."

Matt laughed. "Well, what did you figure out."

Will told him what had happened in the last four days.

"So the Oracle wasn't really that helpful?" Matt said.

"Just the usual." Will replied, "although he did help us get the confidence needed to fight them."

"At least that's a victory." Matt said, laughingly.

"Matt, this is serious!" Will said, annoyed.

" I know." Matt replied.

There was a silence for a while, and then a sigh.

"Will," Matt started, "are you still sure you don't want me there? Now that you know who the enemy is, this Ignis, Agua and Odor and probably a fourth woman in green robes, and now that you're going to confront them, you will need all the help you can get."

"No, Matt." Will replied, determined to keep him from harm, "I think it's best to go along with them for now. But you will know when we will need you. I just know it."

"I hope it isn't too late at that moment…" Matt replied, sounding sad.

"It won't be." Will said.

They were silent for a while.

"I wish you were here," Will replied quietly, like a whisper, nearly unheard. "I could use someone to comfort me right now. Someone to hold me tight. But I know I have to be strong. For you. For me. For everyone in Heatherfield…"

Matt whispered back. "I'm never truly gone. Look into your heart and you'll find me there. I'll always be there to comfort you."

Will smiled and a single water drop fell down the water pipe. She noticed it as it fell to the ground, seemingly in slow motion, and created a small splash on the ground. It reminded her of herself, when she jumped into the swimming pool.

"Thanks, Matt." Will replied in a hushed voice.

She noticed the girls behind her. She couldn't see them, but she was sure they were there.

"I have to go, Matt." Will said.

She hung up and turned around. She saw the girls, smiling at her. They pulled her into a hug, as a drop of water fell down a water pipe, crawling to the ground.

"Thanks, guys." She replied, softly.

"How emotional. It seems I've got to bring a message to you at a most unfortunate time." Somebody said.

The girls immediately abandoned their hug and were on the alert. They looked around, but nobody was seen. They looked up, but noticed nobody. That only left one option. They looked at the ground, but only noticed a pool of water, which was forming under the water pipe.

"Agua." Will said, "how pleasant of you to join us here."

Agua rose from the pool. "That's a quick shift in emotions, Guardian. Admirable."

Her voice seemed honest and she even sounded genuinely impressed.

"Why are you here?" Irma asked, "I don't suppose it's for the cantina food? Because only Blunk likes that."

"Let me put it this way. Taranee, what is the question you want to see answered now?" Agua replied to the question.

"Who is your leader, and where is she?" Taranee said. "Odor said Ignis would like to be the leader, but she's not. This implies there's more than just you. So, who and where is she?"

The mask concealed Agua's face, but the girls were sure she was smiling.

"Tomorrow afternoon, at 17:00, at the highest building off Heatherfield. All will be revealed and all will be explained. No more 'in due time'. No more games." Agua replied, pointing at them with her left hand. "If you want to try to save the city, be there. And then you shall see you cannot interfere. As we've been telling you from the very beginning."

Her last glance was at Hay-Lin, who remembered the nightmares.

"Your hand…what's that?" Cornelia asked.

The girls took a look at Agua's left hand, and for the first time, they noticed it wasn't made from flesh. It was metallic.

"Tomorrow afternoon, at 17:00. It'll become clear at that time." Agua said as she vaporized.

Her vaporized head glanced at every Guardian, and then she disappeared.

Will sighed. "Tomorrow afternoon it is then."

Caleb came running towards them.

"I thought I heard one of them." He said, panting slightly, "who was it, what did she do here, what did she say?"

So, W.I.T.C.H. explained what Agua said. Then Will told them what she had told Matt.

"So, even though you miss him and want him to be here, you told him to stay away?" Caleb asked.

"I wanted to protect him. I didn't want him to die, in case that would…" Will started, but a finger on her mouth stopped her from talking. In fact, it were 4 fingers, who reacted the same at nearly the same time.

"Don't say that." Irma, Taranee, Cornelia and Hay-Lin said simultaneously.

Will closed her eyes.

"Thanks, guys." She said.

Once she opened her eyes again, she seemed determined, more than ever.

"This time, we know all of them are here. They have given us an advantage. And we should try keeping that. No more running. No time to cry. We will determine not only our fate, but that of Heatherfield as well, tomorrow afternoon. We must not fail."

It was silent for a short while.

"No pressure. No pressure at all." Irma said softly.

It let all of them smile. Perhaps it would be their last.

…

"So, you have given them the time and location?" Ignis asked, getting a nod from Agua. "Excellent. Are you sure they will come?"

"They have to. I don't think they want to miss the chance of trying to stop us, now that we have given them an advantage." Agua said.

"They will have a plan," Odor said.

"So does She." Ignis replied. "A good old trick that always works. They know the dangers of it. They know they have to take us on together."

"Luckily for us, the Guardian Leader is stubborn enough to keep Matt out of this. We might've had a little more trouble if they had some allies with them, especially if they have a Heart." Odor responded.

"As it seems, everything is going according to plan." Agua said.

"I just hope the plan is good enough." Odor responded.

"Hey, we're three power houses, and She's even stronger. They had a hard time dealing with us in the Silver Dragon. I'll admit, they weren't in Guardian Form, but still. The plan is good enough." Ignis said.

"Sometimes She creeps me out." Odor whispered, and everybody became silent.

"Me too," the other two confessed.

"But I guess that's part of why we're doing this. She doesn't want to creep us out. So, change must happen." Agua said.

"We must do this, for us. For them. For her…" Odor said, sounding sad.

"Don't worry. We will keep our promise." Ignis said, as she took Odor in her arms. "Count on it."

Her voice sounded determined. Not even close to how Her voice sounds if she's determined, but it was audible. It gave the three of them strength. They looked over the city from their rooftop. Heatherfield looked so beautiful…but that was about to change.

*The next day, 16:40, the highest building in Heatherfield, crash site of the Tablet of Air.*

W.I.T.C.H., Caleb and Yan-Lin walked towards the building. For some reason, the streets around it were empty. The business had given its employees a day off. Will thought this wasn't a coincidence.

"I thought I said 17:00." Agua said.

They looked around and noticed her sitting on a rooftop, together with Ignis and Odor.

"We thought we'd be a little early. We don't want to miss the show." Irma said.

"Or you want to meddle in our affairs." Ignis said, sarcastically. "But that must just be me."

"Cut the crap." Will suddenly said. "Explain yourselves."

"I'm sorry, Guardian, but we can only explain ourselves when all of us are here. Which, at the moment, isn't the cause." Odor said.

"But you said…" Cornelia started.

"17:00. Is it that time yet? No. It's 16:45 right now." Ignis retorted. "So why don't you just wait for a little while?"

The girls, Caleb and Yan-Lin were silent.

"Good." Ignis said.

Will thought about their options. Transforming now and attacking them wasn't an option. If anybody saw them, their identities might be at risk. They also couldn't just wait. The next tablet would fall from the skies, possibly triggering the destruction of a part of Heatherfield, perhaps even Heatherfield in its entirety. There was no way of doing something now. They had to wait for their messenger to bring them their advantage. Perhaps then they could match these women. And their leader.

They kept silent for a while. It seemed as if time stood still during the stare-off that ensued. Eventually, a clock was heard in the distance. Immediately after the fifth bang, a flash marked the skies. Yan-Lin immediately searched the skies.

"Run to the building where Ignis, Odor and Agua are. If they're there, the tablet won't hit them." Caleb said.

They ran towards the building. They saw the tablet coming closer to the building.

Will suddenly got an idea. "Focus your power on that tablet! Perhaps we can stop it!"

The girls closed their eyes and tried to focus. Because their eyes were closed, they didn't notice Odor coming down from the building. She landed on the ground, quickly turned around and blew them against the wall. Their focus broken, they couldn't do anything anymore. Will looked up and saw Ignis and Agua landing next of Odor, the tablet crashing through the highest building and piercing the ground right in front of the entrance. I.T.C.H. looked slightly defeated, but Will only seemed angry.

Ignis shook her head. "Don't be angry, Will."

The group looked shocked. Ignis, Agua and Odor had never said their names, only referring to them as Guardians. The group didn't even know they knew their names.

"It will only feed your fears. And I'm sure you don't want to become that." Ignis said, sounding a little sad.

"What do you mean?" Irma asked, as Will turned her head down. "Is this about…Nerissa?"

Will shook her head. She looked up and stared daggers at Ignis. But there was also something cold about the look.

"How do you know?" She asked coldly.

"Don't do that, Will. Don't. It's in our…revelation. Which will start, now." Ignis responded.

…

She was laying in her bed. Her arm was wrapped around his body. She didn't care that he had seen her face. He thought She was beautiful. An alarm rang. Immediately, Her eyes opened. He looked around, sleepily.

"What's going on?" he asked.

She rose from the bed. He kissed her on the back.

"No time for this now." She said, as cold as ever.

He looked at her.

"It's time." She said, without looking at him.

Immediately, he stopped his affections. He got out of the bed as well. She rose her hand and their clothes came to them and they were dressed. Lastly, her mask rose to her face. It gently touched it and placed itself. It covered half her face. Her hand glowed for a second and the mask started to create another half, so her entire face was covered. It had turned into the mask she usually wore.

A white flash appeared in front of the bed. She walked to the door and opened it, letting Napoleon get inside. Together they walked through the flash.

…

Ignis, Odor and Agua went up the building again. The group quickly ran to the rock to see if it had hit anyone, but it hadn't. They turned around and saw Ignis, Agua and Odor on the roof. A white flash appeared behind them.

"You wanted to see our leader, Taranee. Here She is." Agua said.

At that moment, Napoleon stepped through the white flash and went to sit on the roof.

"_What?_" Cornelia yelled. "_YOU!"_

"No doll." A voice said behind them.

They turned around and saw Napoleon again.

"_WHAT?"_ Cornelia yelled, "What's going on here?"

The white flash crackled, and a woman and man came through the flash, as it disappeared behind them. Caleb looked at the man and his eyes widened. W.I.T.C.H. looked at him as well, distracted by the crackling.

"It can't be…" Hay-Lin whispered.

"Impossible." Irma whispered.

"Dad?" Caleb asked.

The man looked down and shook his head.

"No Caleb. I'm not your father." He said, making Caleb and the girls sigh in relief. "I am _you_."


	6. Revelations

**[A/N] There's a part of music involved in this chapter. It's title is Z-One's theme. If you want to, you can search it on Youtube and play it.**

Caleb shot up.

"Oh, it had all been a dream. Just a dream."

"A dream come true." His own voice, though sounding somewhat different, said.

He looked around in shock. He was still on the square. The girls and Yan-Lin were surrounding him. They looked worried, though Cornelia was relieved when he woke up.

"What happened?" Caleb asked.

"Well," Yan-Lin said, "after that man said he was you, you sorta fainted."

Caleb looked up and saw the man looking annoyed while Agua was teasing him.

"What's she saying?" Caleb asked.

Hay-Lin used her powers over air to hear it and then started laughing.

"She says: 'I told you so, I told you so!'"

Caleb pouted. "Great, humiliate me more."

*Aether's/Z-one's theme*

"_ENOUGH!"_ A loud, cold voice shouted.

Everybody looked up and saw the woman that had just come through the portal. She was wearing robes, the same as Ignis, Odor and Agua wore, but her mask was different. The woman was wearing dark red robes and black, leather shoes. Her mask was white in it's entirety, with small black stripes under her eyes which went to the sides of her face in small steps. On the right side, no eye was visible. On the left side, a small opening in the mask showed her eye, brown of color.

"My name is Aether." Aether said, which made Taranee gasp. "We, Ignis, Agua, Odor, Caleb and Myself have come to the past to alter the future."

"Whoa. Hold on." Cornelia asked. "Came to the past? What?"

"I'll explain shortly, right after this." Aether said as she looked around.

"Guys," Taranee said, getting everybody's attention. "Remember history lessons? When we were discussing the old Greeks? Aristotle said there were five elements. Water, fire, earth, air and aether."

"So?" Irma asked, "What's your point?"

"What I'm trying to say is, Aether is another word for…"

"_QUINTESSENCE!"_ Aether yelled, shooting lightning from her hands, which seemed almost 6 times as powerful as Will's lightning in her Guardian form.

"Yeah, that's what I meant." Taranee said.

"Oh." The rest said.

"I think I already know who this 'Aether' is. But the question is, why is she doing this?" Will asked.

They looked around and noticed all the electrical devices with screens were being taken over by Aether. A large screen showed her face.

…

*At the same time, at the Mayor's house*

"Citizens of Heatherfield." The Mayor started, addressing the large audience that had come to see this press conference and the people at home, who were watching this by the city-wide broadcast, "I am aware that the police and I have failed to give you any information about the mysterious rocks which have fallen in the vicinity of Heatherfield. As a matter of fact, another rock fell from the skies and crashed into Heatherfield right before this press conference started. The answer to why is because the police can't find out what's happening. The rocks are a mystery to anyone who studied them."

"But mister Mayor," a journalist asked, "what are you doing to make sure these rocks won't cause any casualties. By sheer luck, there haven't been any casualties yet."

"I am aware that these rocks have fallen at dangerous sites and that we're lucky to not have had any casualties. But I don't think there's much we can do. If the government can't take down meteors heading towards Earth itself, how should I as the Mayor of a city take them down? Instead, we've temporarily given shelter to those who have become victim of these rocks and are refunding their lost properties, for example by rebuilding their homes."

"But, mister Mayor, what are these lightning streams going through the city?" another journalist asked.

"Very good question, I…wait, what?" the Mayor asked confused.

The audience looked around and saw giant lightning streams going through the city. One of them hit the screen which was showing the Mayor during his speech. It distorted the image and it showed snow.

"What's happening?" the Mayor asked.

Suddenly the screen became alive again. But it didn't show the Mayor's face. It showed a masked face, with only one brown eye visible. The highest building in Heatherfield was visible in the background.

"Get that person here, I need to talk to her." The Mayor said.

"My name is Aether. I have come here to destroy Heatherfield." Aether said, echoing through the city, cold and harsh, her voice sending a chill down the spine of everybody who could hear it.

"Or better yet, just kill her on the spot." The Mayor said, although sounding a little frightened.

"Some of you may have been wondering what those rocks are for. Let me show you what the tablets actually do." Aether said, her words echoing through the city. Birds started to fly away at record speeds, not wanting to be caught in what was about to happen.

At that time, all of the rocks fell apart, revealing a machine with a timer on it and a spike towards the skies. The timers counted down…3…2…1…0. From the spike a purple beam was emitted. It was visible from the Mayor's house. They saw how the purple beams reached a certain height and how it started to spread over the city. A purple energy field surrounded the city. Everybody had gone silent. They looked at the screen, terrified, thinking of what could possibly be going to happen to them. In the distance, sirens were heard.

"Let me explain how this is going to work." Aether said, her voice echoing, "this energy field will allow anybody to leave the city. I am not willing to destroy innocent lives. However, as soon as you leave the city, the energy field will block your entrance. In other words, you can get out, but can't get in. At 07:00 AM tomorrow morning this city is going sky high and the only thing you'll see in its place is a crater going half a mile deep. So, if you want to save yourselves, leave this place. Anybody within the energy field at 07:00 AM tomorrow morning is dead. Suit yourselves. By the way, the energy field makes only one exception, which is going to be made now."

A flash appeared in the sky and the energy field opened. Another tablet fell through the opening and headed straight for the Mayor's house. The audience panicked and ran away in different directions. The tablet crashed right into the Mayor's house, after which it fell apart and revealed another device, though it didn't look like the one's in the other rocks. It had four openings, but that was it. Aether's face disappeared from the screen, instead being replaced by a timer. 14:00:00, 13:59:59, 13:59:58…

"Don't be too late." Aether's voice said.

Everybody went mad, running away in different directions, running to the homes to try and salvage what they could. Everyone and everything left the area. Complete chaos had taking control over the city and the nature itself seemed to notice it. Trees started to let go of their leaves, as though showing their last salute to the city, which had been their home for their entire life. They seemed to die soon after. Plants which were supposed to be in full bloom decayed in an unbelievable rate, dying quickly. Animals normally hidden tried to escape the city, rats, bees, wasps, mice… The earth trembled slightly and the water at the beach seemed to become wild. Clouds quickly formed over the city, dark clouds filled with thunder and lightning. A small lava pool started to emerge from Warmwater. A strong, eerie wind went through the city. It seemed to whisper into everyone's ear with a voice too gentle for this occasion: '_get away from here'_.

"Evacuate the city." The Mayor said to the police commander, "send the rest of your men to take down that woman."

"There's already a squadron deployed. They're heading to the crash site as we speak."

"Excellent." The Mayor said, "meanwhile, let's get out of here."

…

"So you are simply going to destroy Heatherfield? For what reason? I demand an answer!" Cornelia yelled.

"I will explain in a short while." Aether said, "now, I have something to take care of. Evacuating these brave men who have come to stop us from the city, thereby saving you."

The sirens became louder and multiple police cars stopped right behind W.I.T.C.H., Caleb and Yan-Lin. The policemen didn't care for them. If they were still here, they wanted to die, which was fine by them.

"Aether, you're under arrest!" A police officer said from behind the police door, having his gun aimed at her. "Give up, or you'll be shot down!"

"How amusing." Aether's voice echoed over the square. "Do you really think you can stop me, no, us, with your puny weapons? You'll need something stronger than that."

"She asked for it, boys." The police officer said, "fire at will, and you, take out the bazooka! Get down girls!"

W.I.T.C.H., Caleb and Yan-Lin quickly dove to the ground when the bullets started flying right past them. Aether simply raised her hand and caught the bullets in a shield, made from lightning.

"How amusing." Her voice echoed.

"Now she's really starting to annoy me. Kill her! Kill them all."

The bazooka was taken out of the car and aimed at Aether.

"Why the bloody hell do they have a bazooka in a police car?" Irma yelled over the noise of gunfire.

"You're really wondering about that while we're trying to not get killed?" Will asked, sarcastically.

"Well, it's just odd." Irma said.

"We knew she was a threat, seeing those lightning streams, so we took the heavy weapons with us." A police officer said.

"Fire!" another one yelled.

Again, bullets flew towards Aether, this time accompanied by rockets, yet she simply stopped the bullets and deflected the rockets. They destroyed empty houses, which caught fire.

"Is that it? Don't you have anything else to try and kill me?" Aether yelled, almost maniacal, to the policemen.

"Fire the bazookas, aim at the same spot in the shield. Take her down, take her down!" The police officer yelled in return.

More shots were fired, but Aether raised both hands and the rockets flew into each other before they could hit her. Will created the same sort of energy shield that Aether used to protect them from the falling shells and debris.

"Will, our identities!" Hay-Lin said.

"What would you rather be, dead or alive?" Will snapped.

The girls nodded and created shields of their own as to release Will of some of the burden.

"Quintessence." Aether yelled, sending small lightning streams from her hands towards the police officers. The police officers jumped away and the lightning hit their guns instead. "Right what I was aiming for."

The police officers seemed to be confused, not knowing what was going on. Their guns rose from the ground, as if carried by an invisible person. The jaws of most police officers fell open from amazement, although they quickly yelled in terror as the guns started firing at their feet. They didn't seem to want to kill them, but chase them out of the city.

Aether looked over the now destroyed square.

"Ignis, douse the fire."

Ignis raised her hands and slowly the fires doused. W.I.T.C.H., Caleb and Yan-Lin got up and looked around in amazement.

"That. Was. Awesome." Irma exclaimed, receiving a snicker from Aether.

"Irma, this is not the time to be admiring your enemy's power." Yan-Lin said with a sigh.

"Not even a little?" Irma asked, getting her glares from the girls.

Irma immediately recognized the look in their eyes. Fear. Natural, primal fear. But also determination. They had to fight with these sorceresses to save their city. Their home. This was no time to cheer about your enemy's potency. This was the time to be serious and save what you believed in, or die defending it.

"Not even a little." Irma responded to her own question.

"Now," Aether said, "let me explain why…"

"I don't need an explanation." Will snapped, making Aether shake her head, "You're going to destroy the city and I won't have it. No, we won't have it."

Will took out the Heart.

"Guardians…"

Suddenly, the Heart beamed away from her. Will looked around and saw the Heart around Aether's neck.

"Sorry, Will, the Guardians will _not_ unite. At least, not yet." Aether said.

Will fell to the ground and slammed it with her fist. Yet again had she failed. She was useless against Phobos due to her powers being drained to maintain the Veil, she had failed to protect Kadma from Nerissa when she had the chance, she didn't free Elyon when she had the chance, she hadn't been able to save Matt from Shagon, nor beat him because she couldn't control her anger, heck, she had failed in being a good girlfriend by nearly forgetting a date right before this all happened and now she wasn't able to defend her own city, nor her friends. She was a failure, and she knew it.

"Get up." Aether commanded, but Will didn't move.

Tears blurred Will's vision as she thought herself to be a failure, a good-for-nothing-person. Suddenly, she was propelled through the air and she found herself floating right in front of Aether.

"I said: Get up." Aether said, her voice cold.

Will looked into the brown eye. Mahogany brown. It confirmed her feelings. She let her head hang, not wanting to look into her eye.

"Look at me." Aether commanded, and Will couldn't help but oblige. "Do you really want to become this cold as me? Do you really wish to become me? No, of course you don't. So stop thinking you're a failure and show what you can do. And even if you can't beat me, you'll at least have tried. And believe me, that's more than others would do. You'd show courage if you'd face up to me, which this world lacks."

Will got shot back to the ground and was gently placed by her friends.

"So, what's it going to be, Will?" Aether asked, coldly.

"But…" Will started, but she got interrupted

"No buts, Will." Aether interrupted, "Your powers were drained by the Veil. Fact. But it was _you_ who created a plan, together with Caleb, to stop Phobos. Kadma's submission to Nerissa was her own fault, not yours, for being weak and thinking she could control all that power by herself. You were strong by defying those feelings. Imagine, if you'd given in there, the entire universe could've been enslaved by Nerissa. You'd have given her Kandrakar itself. You couldn't free Elyon due to Kadma's failure. You couldn't beat Shagon because he was Matt's inner demon. Only the person to who that demon belongs can destroy it. You weren't weak when you couldn't resist hating Shagon. You hated him because you cared deeply for Matt. It was your _love_ that made you hate him, because you thought he had hurt him. And forgetting a date _once_? Oh no, what a nightmare. Matt must've been really angry. Except that you called and talked to him and he didn't seem mad at all. You've even went to his house _twice _and made up with him the day after you forgot your date. You care, Will. And if caring is being a failure, then surely everybody will go to hell. Take it from me, Will. Take it from yourself."

Will smiled at her. "Thanks, Aether."

She couldn't see Aether smile, but she was sure there was a small grin behind that mask.

"Now, on to the whole revelation part." Ignis said.

"Right," Aether said, looking at Will, "and the first revelation will be…"

"Aether is me." Will said, getting a nod from Aether.

"What?" Caleb asked.

"The eye tipped me off. Plus the 'take it from yourself'."

"And then I thought that old guy…" Caleb started.

"HEY!" the older Caleb yelled.

"Being me was weird, but _you_ being Aether? Next thing you're going to tell me is that Ignis is Taranee, Odor is Hay-Lin and Agua is Irma." Caleb resumed.

"Well," Ignis started, "since you already guessed it."

Caleb face palmed. "Oh, this is just great. Let me guess, you're just as powerful?"

"No." Agua said, getting another face palm out of Caleb.

"Please, continue on, with your story." Yan-Lin asked in a humble way.

"Of course, Miss Lin." Aether said.

Aether raised her hand and created a glamour zone around the square by using the Heart. The glamour zone showed them how it had happened.

"It all started with the discovery of Sozanite. Sozanite existed out of very small pebbles, created right beneath the ground of Heatherfield. These pebbles were formed by the presence of all four elements, creating the fifth one. One might say that Sozanite itself was Quintessence in its purest form. These pebbles held a great amount of energy. People had found out that this power source was powerful enough to supply power to a country like the United States or Russia for two thousand years. The government, thinking this was the solution to their energy problems, immediately dug out all of the Sozanite and started experimenting on how to use this powerful source to it's maximum potential. After a few years, people had found out that, if you could concentrate it enough and then enrich it, its power wasn't depleted as fast. They called this enriched version 'Sozanite-II'. With this new technique, one gram of Sozanite-II could supply power to a country like Russia for approximately ten thousand years. To good to be true, it was quickly used as an energy source all around the world. And it was, indeed, too good to be true. Greed had caused people to turn the purest form of energy into something that was never meant to be." Aether said, "All the Sozanite-II reactors were connected to each other, as to get power from the others, to show that we were all connected. But suddenly, all over the world, the Sozanite-II was becoming unstable. Engineers, scientists, physicists, they couldn't do anything to revert it. And then it happened. The first reactor, located in Washington DC, exploded during a conference, which Cornelia and I attended. It created a chain reaction. All reactors started to blow. Cities were destroyed, countries reduced to rubble, even entire continents were flattened out. The oceans became polluted due to all the rubble and the air was being polluted by all the fires. But something else, something peculiar had happened. We from W.I.T.C.H. weren't affected by the shockwave in a bad way, not even Cornelia, who was closest to it of all of us. Instead, we felt renewed, younger, more vivid than ever. And, on top of it all, our powers had gotten stronger than ever. Our powers were almost 10 times as strong as they were at our strongest when we were still Guardians, and we hadn't even transformed into Guardian form. The aurameres got enhanced by the power of the Sozanite, the power of Quintessence and the four elements itself. And with these renewed powers, we tried to save the world once more."

"In your visions, you saw Heatherfield itself. You saw the ravages, the disasters. Cornelia teletransported to us and we fought to protect it, while Will, as the only remaining authority as Governor, protected the White House, what was left of it, and those who sought shelter there." Ignis continued. "It wasn't in vain. After a while, the disasters settled, weather returned to normal. Although it had all taken a part of us. Quite literally."

Agua showed her left hand, made of metal, just like Nerissa's. Ignis took off her mask and revealed a robotic eye. Odor pulled her robes up a bit and showed her iron leg.

"Will was our leader and the only authority left," Ignis said, "so, naturally, she became the leader figure. And these were dark times. There was no food and water, no shelter. And with a new leader figure, the few people we actually managed to save found someone to blame. So they went to Will's office. They talked to her, politely, as to trick her. When she turned her back to their speaker because he said something was going on outside, he hit her in the head. She…"

"I was unconscious." Aether continued, hatred audible, though her coldness remained, "I couldn't defend myself. But what they did to me woke me up. It would wake anyone up. _They_ _took my face from me._ They took something, I don't know what and burned the left side of my face off. Badly. It woke me up, of course. Anyone would wake up from that. Enraged I lashed out. I killed everybody there. Made the remaining furniture kill them, let them hang by their own belts, killed one person by his hair, electrocuted people to death, threw them out of the window into sharp rocks, whatever you can possibly think of that I could do with 10 times my regular powers, I did. These people weren't worthy to be saved anyway if they _dared_ treat anyone like that."

W.I.T.C.H., Caleb and Yan-Lin looked away from the images, as it showed how Aether, in a rage, killed everybody on the spot.

"So, she returned to us after leaving the rest of Washington DC in ruins. As all of us were terrified by her face, she created a mask to cover it up. The people we had saved in Heatherfield started fighting against each other for the little food that remained and in the end, the seven of us, Will, Irma, Taranee, Cornelia, Hay-Lin, Caleb and I remained." Napoleon said, "we tried to figure out a way to fix this. To recreate the Earth. But all our efforts seemed in vain. It seemed as if they Earth itself had died. And when Will checked it, our worst thoughts were confirmed. The explosions of the reactors had drained all the energy from the Earth. Nothing could live on it. So, Will, in a great display of raw power, used her powers to re-energize the planet. Just think of how majestic it looked."

The glamour zone showed Will starting to float, lightning crackling around her. Giants thunderclouds started to form above her head and lightning hit her straight on. Will sent it back to the clouds and created a loop, which was constantly gaining more power, until, eventually, she hit her fist into the ground with all her might, giving the energy a point of release. Will stood there, her hair still blazing, the wind going through it. And Cornelia used her powers, and the Earth was renewed, small plants and bushes were starting to grow. Over time, Earth would forget this disaster, as it had so many.

"But it wasn't enough. Cornelia had the idea of repopulating the world, but it was hopeless, none of you were fertile anymore. So, if you can't alter the present or future, you alter the past. Will tried getting to Kandrakar, but it didn't work. Eventually, a fold opened and the Oracle entered through it. He, too, wanted the Earth to change back to how it was once before, as this disaster had not only hit Earth, but had gone through the dimensions and scarred other worlds as well. He saw the potential of the girls and he knew they would make it right." Napoleon continued, "And they deviced a plan. They would use the 'falsification of history' technique. The only thing the Oracle knew about it, was that it required the five elements. So, each of you gave part of their powers to objects, so that you could experiment with them to create the strongest and most dangerous spell in history. Shortly after giving away part of her powers, Cornelia grew ill. When Irma checked on her, it seemed that the Sozanite-II explosion right besides her had caused her to grow a tumor in the head, which had started to spread through her body. Cornelia didn't want to be cured, knowing her death was inevitable. And, in less than a week…she passed away. And the last thing she ever said was that she 'hoped for a brighter future for everyone, even those who had died'."

Cornelia looked at Aether, Ignis, Odor and Agua and noticed none of them were looking in her direction, their memory of her relived. If there had been birds around, they would have stopped singing. If the trees still had their leaves, they were letting go of them now. Everything that had a direct connection to the Earth, showed sadness and sorrow. She started to cry, as she heard her own fate and the fate of the world. She broke down on the ground. She noticed Napoleon, in his younger state, her own cat, given to her by Will, come to her and lick her hand. All of the girls then hugged her.

"This event caused the rest of the girls to…grow colder. Will more so than the others. She despised humans for everything they did to the world, for every war, for what they did to her. So, she nearly destroyed her own humanity. She became a cold being, who was focused on one thing: altering to past. Her determination took a hold of her and she decided that Will wasn't suitable of her anymore. She had become more, or less, than that. She started calling herself Aether, and the other girls, Caleb and me followed suit. And then, when Hay-Lin was paying tribute to Cornelia, when Aether found out how the 'falsification of history' worked. After that, we started experimenting. Unfortunately, not everything had the effect we wanted. Such as the Titanic for example. And Phobos, and Nerissa." Napoleon said.

"_You_ were the cause for Phobos and Nerissa?" Will asked.

"Not exactly." Agua said. "But are you sure you don't want to hear about the Titanic first, because that actually is quite…"

"No, just stick to the things that matter." Caleb said, annoyed.

"Oh, a bit annoyed by the 'I told you so'?" Agua said, teasingly, "Oh well. Anyways, you would've fought Phobos and Nerissa, even if we hadn't intervened, you just would've fought them later. You should have seen how Aether reacted when you denied Nerissa the Heart of Kandrakar. It seemed like she was actually cheering. She didn't know if you'd be strong enough to do that this early on in your life, while you've had all these issues."

"Anyways," Odor said, "they didn't have the effects that we wanted. They only delayed the discovery of Sozanite. We wanted it to be gone all together. We had to destroy it. But destroying the Sozanite meant that we had to destroy Heatherfield as well, due to the amount of power Sozanite holds. So, therefore, we started 'evacuating' your loved ones from the city, so that they wouldn't be harmed."

Suddenly, Taranee and Will looked shocked.

"My parents!"

"Mom!"

"Don't worry." The old Caleb said, "your parents were heading to an opera this evening, at 17:00, but their car 'miraculously' broke down. 'Luckily', Susan was there to bring them. They're out of the city."

Taranee and Will looked relieved.

"Then, lastly, we didn't want you to interfere until the end, which is right now, so we could plan everything. I managed to convince Aether to spare the citizens and not just blow Heatherfield up immediately." Ignis said, "You know, the butterfly effect. We don't want to cause any bad things from this. But, the only way to blow up the destroy the Sozanite is by destroying Heatherfield."

W.I.T.C.H. looked at each other. They all nodded.

"You do realize we're not just going to let this happen, right?" Will said, knowing this was the answer she had to give, knowing that Aether wanted to prepare them for other battles.

"I know you won't. But whatever will you do to stop us?" Aether said, jokingly, knowing exactly what was going to happen.

"We'll fight for Heatherfield, for our home!" Irma said, determination blazing.

The Heart of Kandrakar was teletransported back to Will's hand. Aether looked surprised., she hadn't calculated this into her plan.

"Always pay attention to the Heart. That's what I learned from being its keeper." Will said with a smile. "If there's a chance we can save Heatherfield, we'll take it. We have to fight for our city, to protect it, how noble the intentions may be. Because destroying things is not the way."

The girls assembled.

"Only one way to go. I won't be interrupted again. GUARDIANS UNITE!"

The Heart shone and the girls transformed to their Guardian forms. Behind them, a fold opened and Elyon stepped through it.

"Seems like I've arrived just in time. It seemed I couldn't get earlier due to a magical barrier."

"Aether!" Will yelled, "it's time for a Heart to Heart!"

Aether simply looked down. "Indeed, it is. Since we are guardians as well, I could say the same thing. I could use the power of the Heart to transform us. But I won't. I'll give you a chance."

A silence went over the square. The wind seemed to take away all sounds.

"Cornelia, Elyon and me will take on Aether. The others will fight themselves." Will commanded, getting nods from the others.

"So, you have decided your strategy? And you have gotten reinforcements?" Aether said. "All to no avail. I will offer you the chance to run away one last time. Leave now."

"Never!" the girls yelled simultaneously.

"So be it." Aether said.

Aether, Agua, Ignis and the older Caleb got teletransported to the tablet of Quintessence, the Tablet of Water, the Tablet of Fire and the Tablet of Earth respectively. Odor stayed behind at the square.

"It seems we'll have to fight them at their own Tablet." Hay-Lin said.

"Where your elements are the strongest." Yan-Lin said, "As well as theirs."

They all stayed silent for a second, nodded at each other and flew away to their own respective Tablet. Caleb kissed Cornelia one last time before he went and then started running towards the Tablet of Earth.

Aether was standing on the Mayor's house, looking over the o-so-familiar city.

"So, it has been decided. The Battle for Heatherfield…no, the Battle for Earth, has begun."

**[A/N] Yeah, I thought this would take me longer to do, but apparently I found some spare time and started writing. This chapter came out really quickly, because I've been wanting to tell this stuff for a long time. Only 1 person besides me knew the actual plot. So, I hope you enjoyed it. Tune in next time for the Battle for Earth!**


	7. The Battle for Earth

**[A/N] Time for the final showdown! Will W.I.T.C.H. stand a chance against the magical might of Aether and her friends? [A/N]**

_*12:47:48 hours before annihilation*_

Irma quickly rushed to the beach. She knew the Tablet of Water had fallen first, so therefore, it was Agua's privilege to start the battle. As Irma approached the beach, she noticed the enormous wall of water that was rising from the sea.

"Welcome, Irma." Agua said, standing in front of the Tablet of Water, as she took of her mask. "This is the very place where I will defeat you and bring peace to the future. Are you ready to face off?"

"Stop the drama, old me. I know I'm more of the jokes." Irma said. "This is so weird."

"I know, right?" Agua said, a little cheery. "But, what must be done, must be done."

Irma landed in front of Agua. "Is there no other way?"

Agua looked at Irma for a second. Suddenly she shot her metallic left hand to her, trying to slash her. Irma quickly dodged.

"Okay, okay, I get it. Bad question. You probably wouldn't destroy Heatherfield if you had another way."

Agua raised her right hand and a jet of water came from the sea and hit Irma head on. It shot her to the ground. Irma started coughing for air. She saw another jet on its way to hit her. She quickly rolled to her side.

'_Dammit, Irma. You're supposed to be the master of water! Well, in a way I am, but that's not what I mean. I…oh this is so confusing. Just strike back!'_

Irma used the little water in the sand to attack Agua, taking Agua's focus off of her for a second. Irma pulled two jets of water from the sea and shot it at Agua. The jets hit her right in the back and she landed right next of Irma. Irma quickly started flying. Agua saw Irma, with a smug smile on her face.

"I was going to go easy on you, match you with your own power. But now, it's so tempting to get rid of that smug smile…" Agua said, slightly angered.

"Just try that." Irma said.

"Oh, you'll regret those words." Agua said, as she started smiling.

The entire wall of water started shooting jets in Irma's direction. Her eyes widened as she felt the water coming for her. The jets hit her straight on knocking her to the ground once more. She looked up and saw Agua walk to the wall of water. She then created a giant octopus-formation with it.

"One of the more…_advanced _techniques." Agua said, now looking smug.

One of the 'arms' of the octopus wrapped itself around her body and lifted her in the air, only to knock her to the ground a few times. It then let her go in mid air. Irma quickly recovered and saw right on time that 3 other 'arms' were coming for her. She dodged them, cut through them with her hand, effectively removing Agua's control over the arms. Irma then used the three arms to create a giant body of herself.

"Ah, the old trick." Agua remarked.

Irma lifted her foot and let the water crash down on Agua. However, the water never hit Agua. Agua dissolved her octopus-formation and created a hand with it. The hand caught Irma's foot.

"You left your defenses open to me." Agua said.

The hand merged with the foot and Agua shot herself through the foot, the leg, the body and then straight for the Heart, where Irma resided. She hit Irma head on, and Irma got shot out of her own water body. She looked at it and saw that Agua had taken control of it. The body of water turned and water jets shot at her. Irma quickly dodged them.

"Great. Can this get any worse?" Irma asked.

Agua raised her hands and the water residing in the sewers came up through the ground, a stream of it hitting Irma in the back on its way to Agua.

"I had to ask."

Agua shot the sewer water at Irma and froze it. Irma quickly countered by creating an ice shield herself.

"I hope the others are having more fun than me."

A large thunder shock came from the clouds, hitting the Mayor's house.

"On second thought, I think they're in more trouble than I am."

…

Will, Cornelia and Elyon had went to the Mayor's house. When they arrived, they saw Aether, standing in front of the stand the Mayor had been talking from before.

"Welcome."

Will, Cornelia and Elyon looked at each other. All of them had that piece of fear in her eyes.

"So, you think a 3-on-1 will tip the odds in your favour?" Aether asked. "How amusing."

Aether took of her robes. It revealed a dark purple vest with dark purple trousers.

"This should help me move. So, let's get this started."

Aether kicked down the stand and went to sit on a chair.

"Quintessence."

All the chairs and tables came to life. Cars suddenly turned around corners, being controlled by Aether as well. The microphone cable started to act like a cobra.

"Amuse me."

The chairs started to trap them in a circle.

"Cornelia, if you would be so kind." Will said in mockery.

Cornelia punched the ground and the earth beneath the chairs broke, shooting them away. The cars drove towards them, but they were entangled by vines. Elyon used her own magic and the cars disappeared in smoke. The three girls turned to Aether.

"Is that all you got?" Will asked.

Aether rose from her chair. "Actually…"

Aether shot an enormous thunderbolt at the girls, who created a shield to block it. Despite their efforts they were pushed back. In the smoke, Aether's appearance seemed even more frightening. Her silhouette was constantly deformed by the movements of the smoke, but the lightning around her was clearly visible.

"This is not even a fraction of my power." Aether said, through the smoke.

When the smoke had lifted, they could assess the damage. The entire place where they had been standing when Aether had shot her thunderbolt was obliterated. They now knew that Aether had willingly shot them back. At the place where their shield had been, the thunderbolt had split in two, thereby reducing impact damage and blowing up everything in a straight line besides them. Everything behind them was perfectly fine.

"Oh, I see." Elyon said. "There's no kidding with her."

"There's also no kidding with us." Will said, lightning crackling.

"We'll save Heatherfield." Cornelia said, vines coming from the ground, entangling her arms, snapping from the ground and becoming some sort of arm-armour.

"Let's do this, then." Will and Elyon said.

Cornelia shot her vines towards Aether, entangling her. Elyon and Will shot up and fired bolts of magic at Aether, but she simply seemed to absorb them. An electric current went through the vines and electrocuted Cornelia. The vines got loose and Aether simply shook her hands. Will combined her lightning with Elyon's magic and fired it at Aether. Aether simply raised her hand and the magic bounced off of her hand, blasting the building behind her, making it explode and rain down boulders.

Cornelia made use of the boulders and used her telekinesis to shoot them at Aether. Aether looked up, assessed the situation and then jumped towards the boulders. She landed on one, then used the boulder to jump to another.

"She's agile." Cornelia murmured.

Aether jumped towards Will and Elyon, her hands crackling with electricity.

"This is going to hurt like hell." Elyon said, getting a nod from Will.

Aether's hands went to their stomachs. Elyon and Will prepared for the blow, but Aether got hit by a rock before she could attack. Aether fell down, made a spin and landed on her feet and one hand. Immediately, she shot a blast of magic at Cornelia, hitting her hard and knocking her into the rubble behind her.

"It's a three-versus-one, and she's not only matching our power, but even beating it." Elyon said in distress.

"Oh, and I'm not even using 5% of my true power. Simply because I should have never been this strong, I'm only matching you." Aether said with a maniacal grin, which was only half visible due to her mask.

Cornelia got out of the rubble and got back on her feet.

"So, do you still want to fight?" Aether asked, crossing her arms.

"Until we faint." The other three said simultaneously.

"If you wish…" Aether whispered.

The dark clouds above them started to twist and twirl. Lightning was easily seen in them. Aether made a movement with her hands and a large thunder shock came the clouds. The thunder shock formed a large beast, similar to a leviathan. Aether took a seat again and grinned. The thunder-leviathan shot three lightning bolts from its mouth. Will, Elyon and Cornelia quickly dodged, but the lightning bolts exploded as they hit something, electrocuting everything in a small radius. Lightning occasionally shot from the thunder-leviathan. Cornelia shot the rubble at it, but it simply went through it.

"It's not solid! My powers are useless!" Cornelia exclaimed.

Will shot lightning but it was absorbed by the thunder-leviathan. The lightning was then redirected at Elyon who quickly dodged it. Elyon shot one of her own blasts at it, but, like Cornelia's boulders, it went through it.

"We can't do anything against it!" Elyon yelled in despair.

Will smiled. "Yes we can."

"Please explain, what the _hell_ we can do to this beast." Elyon yelled, slightly enraged.

"Absorb it." Will said.

The thunder-leviathan shot lightning from itself and the girls had to make certain moves to not be hit by them. Will took a dive for the leviathan, but right before she got there, it disappeared. They looked stupefied, but then looked at Aether.

"Sorry, but I can't allow you to absorb that much power." Aether said. "It might make you a slight nuisance."

Aether started to crackle with lightning. She sprinted towards them and then jumped up, her hands crackling in electricity. Will reacted by creating a shield, enhanced by Elyon, but Aether simply punched through it with no effort, surprising Elyon and Will. Aether hit Elyon in the stomach and electrocuted her. The electricity went from Elyon to Cornelia, thereby electrocuting Cornelia as well. Both Elyon and Cornelia fell from the sky. Will created a shield and placed them on the ground, before she realized she was extremely vulnerable. She turned around, only to look into Aether's one brown eye. She saw how her own pupil got bigger in its reflection. Will felt the pain go through her body and then she, too, fell to the ground.

…

*11:58:39 until annihilation*

She had seen the giant thunder shock crash down to earth. She knew it meant something bad for Will, Elyon and Cornelia. But she couldn't afford to think what had happened to them. She had to concentrate. A wall of fire went in her direction and she created a fire shield. Taranee dove through the fire wall and went directly for Ignis. Ignis didn't have an expression at all. Ignis raised her hand and simply went through the fire shield, blocking Taranee and grabbing her face. Taranee hit Ignis in the face, while Ignis threw Taranee into a building. Taranee hit the ground and tumbled on the floor. She got up and saw the building ablaze. Taranee simply extinguished the fire.

"Wait, if she's me, she knew I would do that. There has to be more to it."

Suddenly, the roof came down. Taranee quickly shielded herself from the boulders that came down. The entire building came down and collapsed on top of itself. Ignis stood on top of a different building. She seemed to be waiting for a particular moment. Suddenly, she jumped down. Taranee got out of the rubble and immediately got intercepted by Ignis. Taranee took a tumble down the rubble and the remainder of the building. She landed right in front of the Tablet of Fire. Taranee got lifted from the ground and placed against the Tablet. Taranee opened her eyes, not being able to focus. However, she could figure out Ignis raising her hand and trying to bring it to her face. Taranee quickly yanked free and dodged the punch, while simultaneously kicking Ignis in the back of her head, shooting her over the Tablet. Taranee sighed, but Ignis immediately rose from behind the Tablet, fully engulfed in flames. Ignis duck down and tried to hit Taranee, who quickly jumped away and took flight.

Ignis shot a few fireballs at Taranee, who countered by shooting fireballs of herself into them, causing them to explode. The smoke covered a small area of the sky and Taranee knew she had to get out of it. She flew up and then duck down. She suddenly felt a hand hitting her in the stomach and she tumbled over it. She noticed Ignis' silhouette and kicked her in the back and then the stomach. Ignis fell down and made a spin, landing on her hand. She easily seemed to manage to stand on one hand, which impressed Taranee. That quickly faded away when Ignis shot another fireball at Taranee with her free hand. Taranee dodged and then got hit in the face by Ignis' foot. Taranee shot back and felt that her lip was bleeding. Ignis didn't seem hurt at all. Granted, the only hits Taranee had managed to land was when she caught Ignis unaware and it had been kicks. Ignis slowly walked towards Taranee. Taranee created a wall of fire to protect herself, but Ignis simply made a hand-motion and it disappeared. Ignis jumped up and fire extended from her hands, which she brought down when she hit the ground. Taranee quickly spun around and shot fire from her legs, which intercepted Ignis' fire.

"Impressive. You can already use fire offensive _and_ defensive." Ignis said, sounding genuine when complimenting Taranee.

"I'm full of surprises." Taranee said, with a small grin, confusing Ignis.

Suddenly, steam shot from the earth and hit Ignis and made her cough. When she recovered she looked right at a fire punch from Taranee. Ignis shot fire from her mouth, which created a small wall. Taranee's fist hit the wall and she was shot back. She made a spin in the air and landed on her feet, bent through her knees and shot herself at Ignis. She started to spin while letting fire erupt from her hands, turning her into a flaming arrow. Ignis waited for Taranee to come close, then jumped up with her legs spread. She placed her legs around Taranee's head with immense precision and shot her towards the ground while shooting herself towards the air. Ignis made a spin in the air and landed on her hands. She then started shooting fire from her legs and rotating, creating a fire vortex. Taranee recovered from her collision and saw the vortex, which was now headed towards her. Taranee shot a stream of fire into it, causing it to split in two and letting her pass. Ignis jumped towards her, but Taranee bent over and kicked Ignis over her. Their eyes met and Ignis' seemed full with joy. Ignis hit the ground and rolled over. Taranee quickly rose and took on a fighting stance. Ignis rose as well.

"I haven't had this much fun in a _long_ time." Ignis said.

She accompanied it by a shot of fire towards Taranee who dodged and shot one of her own. Ignis simply countered by placing her hands in it. The stream was divided in two and only scorched the earth besides her. Ignis created two jets of fire under her shoes and used them as roller skates to move around faster. She burned away her robes, revealing a red battle outfit. Her eye turned red and shot a small laser beam. Taranee quickly dodged and took flight, thinking that would be enough to stop Ignis from dashing around. Ignis used the fire beneath her shoes to propel herself into the air and was seemingly skating over the air. Taranee flew over a building and Ignis shot at the building. Ignis caught two of the small rocks that got shot away from the building, engulfed them in flames and shot them at Taranee. Taranee dodged one and then got hit with the other on her right leg.

She screamed in agony as it inflicted a burn. She placed her hand on the burn as she saw Ignis fly right into a building. The entire building became engulfed in fire and then shot apart, creating a rain of flaming boulders. Taranee ignored the pain and flew through the rain of boulders, heading straight for another building. She just had to be safe for a few seconds to take away the heat from the burn. Right before she got to the building, Ignis shot out of her own building on her fire jets, trying to grab her hair. Taranee created a small wall of fire at the right time, blocking Ignis' hand, right before crashing through a window. She placed her hand on her wound and sucked out the heat. She sighed in relief as the pain lifted. However, she shrieked in terror when Ignis' blasted through the wall.

…

Hay-Lin flew through the whirlwind and blasted it to pieces with a gust of wind. She had lost track of Odor, though. A gust of wind in her back forced her to the ground. She hit the ground and shook her head, as she tried to get up. She saw Odor looking at her, standing on top of a ball of air, which she had been using to keep up with Hay-Lin. Hay-Lin shot a gust of wind at the ball of air, thereby cutting it in two pieces. Odor fell to the ground and landed smoothly. She inhaled and then exhaled, blowing Hay-Lin back a little bit. Hay-Lin shot a slash of air at Odor, who simply took it in her hand and shot it back at Hay-Lin. Hay-Lin used her power over air to shoot a rock to intercept it, causing the rock to be sliced in two.

Hay-Lin took flight again and Odor re-created her "air scooter" and followed in hot pursuit. Odor created three whirlwinds and used them to intercept Hay-Lin. If Hay-Lin was caught in one whirlwind she was shot to another one, while she was constantly attacked by air slashes.

Meanwhile, her grandmother and the two Napoleons were watching.

"If this keeps up, Hay-Lin will lose, or even worse, die." The younger Napoleon said.

"It is not our intention to kill." The old Napoleon said.

"Then explain why Hay-Lin is suffering so much?" The younger Napoleon asked, but he did not get an explanation.

Yan-Lin simply kept looking. Seeing her granddaughter in this much pain was something she couldn't bear. Yan-Lin used her old powers of air to shoot a gust of wind at Odor, but she lost her breath immediately afterwards.

"Yan-Lin, are you alright?" the two Napoleons asked.

"Just give me a moment." Yan-Lin said, as she inhaled and exhaled.

She looked up and saw that Odor had lost her concentration when she had to dodge Yan-Lin's gust of air, which had allowed Hay-Lin to break free and counterattack. Yan-Lin suddenly seemed cheery.

"I think I'm fine."

Hay-Lin had indeed broken free and was now attempting to use Odor's technique against her. However, since Odor knew the technique, she quickly broke free. She air slashed her robes to pieces, revealing a light blue battle outfit. Odor shot another air slash towards Hay-Lin, but Hay-Lin blocked it with a gust of wind. Hay-Lin locked herself within a tornado, dashing towards Odor, hitting her and pushing her into a building. Hay-Lin abandoned the tornado and shot it at the building, allowing it to wreck havoc on it. Suddenly, the Tornado was blown to pieces as Odor, encased in a ball of air, shot towards Hay-Lin. Hay-Lin's eyes became bigger when Odor crashed into her, trying to get her to the ground. Odor shot three small streams of air to Hay-Lin hitting her full on and pushing her into the ground. Odor stopped her assault and looked at Hay-Lin who was simply laying there, motionless. Suddenly, she wasn't there anymore. Odor looked stupefied for a second, then realizing what was going on. She shot her ball of air into all directions until she heard a sound to her right. She quickly turned to her right and shot another air slash towards it. Another sound was heard and Hay-Lin became visible again.

"Found you."

Hay-Lin suddenly dissolved into air.

"What?" Odor asked.

More Hay-Lin's appeared.

"What's going…on?" Odor asked, while getting a smile on her face. "Ah, illusions. Made by forming the air and breaking the light."

Odor created another ball of air and shot streams of air towards all the 'Hay-Lin's', hitting each of them full on. The streams of air went through all of them, but one. That one tried to dodge.

"Found you."

Odor rushed towards Hay-Lin, who created a ball of air herself. The balls of air hit each other and bounced off. This happened a few times, but they just kept bouncing. Eventually, Odor grew bored of this pointless bouncing and shot three streams of air to Hay-Lin's ball, piercing through it and attacking her. Hay-Lin bend the streams of air back to Odor, who simply reabsorbed them into her ball of air. Once again, Odor crashed into Hay-Lin and pushed her into a wall. She then destroyed her ball of air, shooting Hay-Lin not only through the first wall, but right into the second wall as well. The building started to collapse, but it didn't seem like Hay-Lin was recovering. Odor quickly stabilized the building with air and pulled Hay-Lin towards her. She caught Hay-Lin and then let the building collapse. Odor gently placed Hay-Lin on the ground and made sure she kept breathing.

Yan-Lin quickly rushed towards them, while both of the Napoleons stayed in place. Yan-Lin placed her hand on Hay-Lin's head.

"She'll be fine. All the air in her lungs was blasted out of her lungs when she hit that second wall. She just needs a few minutes to catch a breath." Odor said.

"You do realize she will most likely be enraged and try to attack you again, right?" Yan-Lin said.

"Yes." Odor replied.

It was quiet for a few seconds, but then Hay-Lin woke up while gasping for air. She saw Yan-Lin bent over her, with a smile, and Odor behind her grandmother. Hay-Lin immediately shot a gust of wind at Odor, pushing her into a wall. An enraged Hay-Lin then shot a barrage of air slashes at Odor, blasting her through the wall, through a second wall and into the rubble of a collapsed building. Odor broke free from the rubble and created another ball of air. Streams of air hung from the ball of air like tentacles.

"Now you're going to get it." Yan-Lin said with a sigh.

…

*_10:15:29 until annihilation*_

Irma was dodging water jets, which were being shot from Agua's giant body of water. Irma had tried to regain control of it, but she was easily blocked by Agua. Water shot from the sewers and hit Irma spot on, which caused her to be numb for a second. As she tried to orientate herself again, she got hit by the hand of water. Agua recreated the hands to be more like tentacles. The tentacles shot at Irma one by one, who constantly dodged them. Eventually, she got hit and hit the ground. The tentacle became ice and Irma was trapped. Agua abandoned the body of water, thinking it no longer necessary, and approached Irma.

"So, this is it." Agua said.

When Agua looked at Irma again, she was gone.

"WHAT?" Agua exclaimed, enraged.

Agua looked around, releasing the ice and using it as a water whip again, when she got hit by a stream of water in her back.

"Surprised?" Irma asked, with a small smile.

"How…?" Agua asked, when a small sign of understanding crossed her face. "Refraction of light to make you invisible."

"Only for a short time, but that was enough here." Irma said.

"Very well." Agua replied, "but don't think that that…"

Agua got hit from the right with a jet of water and got thrown in a building. Agua got up and looked enraged. Agua let the wall of water crash down on Irma, who was flooded and nearly drowned. Irma got out of the water only to get punched by Agua. Irma fell in the water again. She opened her eyes under water and saw Agua coming for her in a jet of water. Irma did the same and the two hit full on. However, Agua was much more powerful and simply shot Irma out of the water and into a building. Agua released the pressure and backed off, still riding her water jet. Irma fell down, right for the ground, when a water whip slash open the water jet Agua was riding on. Irma took the water whip and used it to hit Agua. Agua got shot back. Irma got up again, staring into the eyes of Agua.

Agua created a waterspout, a whirlpool-like pillar of water, which rotated and could be moved at will. Irma did the same. Irma got some water on her fingernails and froze it, then shot it at Agua. Agua created an ice-shield for defense. Agua shot multiple jets of water from her waterspout. Irma dodged them by moving her own waterspout, while simultaneously getting closer to Agua. Irma's eyes got bigger when she noticed Agua was smiling.

"You let your guard down."

Irma shortly looked down, seeing one of Agua's jets penetrate her waterspout and rip it open. She fell down and looked up at Agua, who wasn't smiling anymore. She was sad. The jet hit Irma full on and multiple water whips hit her afterwards. She felt how the water surrounded the lower half of her body. She looked up one more time, seeing Agua's hand going to her face. Then everything went black.

'_It's over… She's too strong…'_

_A white light shone in the distance. 'Is this it…is this…the end?'_

_A woman looked at her from a distance.. Irma recognized her vaguely, as an old friend that she had lost, a friend with long blond hair. 'Is this how you want it to be? Going down, not even being able to put up a fight? Or are you going to unleash your abilities? You're stronger than this, Irma. You know it.'_

'_Are you…?' Irma asked._

_The woman laughed and then nodded._

Irma's eyes shot open. She stared right into Agua's eyes, who seemed surprised that she had recovered so quickly, her hand still going for her face. Irma shot water at Agua, who got shot back.

"But how?" Agua asked.

"You should know. I'm a rebel. I won't go down without a good fight." Irma yelled.

She created another waterspout, this one seemingly stronger than the previous one. She let it engulf her and then started rotating. She then shot at Agua, show was still stunned by this sudden turn of events. She got hit full on and she got sucked into it. She got thrown to all directions in the waterspout, until she eventually got shot right out of it and into a building.

Agua got up, created her own waterspout and jumped on. Again, she shot jets at Irma, who had learned from her previous failure and countered by blocking then with her own jets. Irma then summoned a water whip straight through Agua's waterspout, ripping it open and grabbing her leg. Agua froze the water, then pulled her leg out of it. This gave Irma the slight distraction she needed to get close. More water whips hit Agua, constantly knocking her around, eventually knocking her into a building. Irma got close, trying to see Agua's condition. A blast of water hit her and she fell of the waterspout, losing control over it. As she managed to recover and fly, she saw how the water went into the building.

"That can't be good."

Agua got out of the building, surrounded by a ball of water. Tentacles shot at Irma and hit her in the stomach, pushing her into the wall and freezing her. Agua created small water spears and shot it at Irma. Irma summoned water from the sewers and hit Agua, who temporarily lost control over the ice which covered Irma's body. Irma quickly used it as a shield. Agua used the sewer water as a reinforcement for her own water ball. Suddenly, she shed her own water ball, and fell to the ground. As Irma looked down, stupefied, she got hit in the back by a water stream. Agua shot the water ball back up, this time letting it engulf Irma. Agua then froze the ball, leaving Irma trapped in ice. Only her head was still out of the ball. Agua quickly created a waterspout to prevent herself from falling, keeping Irma afloat with her power. Now, Agua wasn't smiling.

"It's not over yet, is it?" Agua asked, only receiving a smile.

"How did you know?"

Irma freed herself from the ball with a quick tap of her head, turning it back to water and trying to hit Agua. Agua raised her hand and stopped the water.

"Then let's continue."

…

_*08:33:47 until annihilation*_

Will regained consciousness again. She felt dizzy and her entire body was aching. She tried to move her hand, only to feel electricity crackling all over her body. If she moved, she was electrocuted. Yet, she was persistent, slowly turning on her back, to see Aether sitting next of her.

"Stay still." Aether said. "When you hit the ground, you absorbed the electricity I had shot at Elyon and Cornelia. You're lucky to be the Guardian of Quintessence, for otherwise, you would have died on the spot. Now stay still, so that I can extract the electricity. Or would you like to die here?"

Will stayed still. "Why are you helping me?"

Aether laughed. "Because I am not evil, dear Will. I am only trying to destroy Heatherfield to right a terrible wrong, not simply to destroy. I don't want to kill any of you. If I would, you wouldn't have lasted five seconds."

"Why didn't you just bring us out of the city? We stand no chance, not even in a 3vs1, with two Hearts." Will asked.

"Because I'm having fun." Aether responded, as Will felt electricity crackling over her body.

She shrieked in pain, but it seemed to become less. Will looked around, seeing Elyon and Cornelia laying on the ground. Cornelia moved her hand and slowly got up, shaking Elyon. Elyon moaned a little bit and also started moving. Will tried to relax. She felt better with every passing second. She looked at Aether. Aether had her eye closed, and Will was sure she heard her whisper in a language she didn't understand. Will could move freely now. Will looked at her own body and saw streams of electricity going from her body to Aether's hand.

A yell, a boulder and a gap in the wall. Those are the only things Will could remember from the following seconds. Will looked at Cornelia, who was standing and had a fighting pose. She had shot a boulder at Aether, perhaps thinking she was attacking Will, or taking away her powers over Quintessence, if that was even possible. Will got up as well and noticed Aether's mask on the ground, broken in 2 pieces. Her eyes got bigger. If Aether's mask was on the ground, then that meant…

Aether shot out of the gap in the wall, crackling with electricity. Her hair was crackling with electricity as well, standing in all directions, leaving her face clearly visible. And it was horrible.

It wasn't just a scar. It seemed as if it hadn't healed properly, having twisted the right side of her face entirely. Her skin was black, filled with blisters and small scars. Her right eye was reduced to a small crevice, the right side of her eye skin had molten together. The right side of her mouth was twisted, and when she spoke, it hardly parted.

"See what has become of me." Aether said, slowly and echoing, "See what the people I saved did to me."

Aether brought her mask back to her hand and melted the two pieces together. She then placed it back on her face.

Cornelia, Elyon and Will just stood there, stupefied. Aether was crackling with electricity all over, giving her an insane look, and brought her hands together, creating a sword of electricity, then brought it down and let it crash towards the trio. Will was the first to react, quickly pushing Cornelia and Elyon out of the way. Will got hit by the sword and got shot into a wall. As Cornelia and Elyon got up, Aether seemed to meditate, most likely regaining her senses and her self-control. When she moved again, she seemed collected again.

Cornelia shot a rock at Aether, while Elyon enhanced it with magic. Aether simply created a shield, which caught the rock and shot it back. Elyon created a shield as well and the rock broke into pieces in collision. Will got up and felt pain aching in her right arm. Will touched it and she could immediately tell that it was broken, as the pain in her arm was so intense. Will knew that Elyon could heal it, but not with Aether attacking them. Aether shot lightning at Elyon. Will, Elyon and Cornelia combined their powers to block the lightning, creating an explosion which left a lot of smoke behind. This gave Will and Elyon the time to heal Will's arm.

The smoke lifted, but there was no sign of Aether. Cornelia got blasted in the back and shot forward. Elyon and Will quickly turned and created a shield, trying to block the lightning, but it didn't matter. The shield was easily shattered and hit the both of them in the stomach, shooting them back, next to Cornelia. Yet again, Will absorbed all of the electricity on Elyon and Cornelia, shrieking in pain. However, this time she was awake and managed to shoot a lightning bolt, which absorbed Aether's lightning, to a wall. Will breathed heavily, seemingly in large pain. Elyon and Cornelia tried to get close, but a lightning cage surrounded them. Aether quickly rushed to Will.

"Will, Will, can you hear me? Stay with me."

Will opened her eyes, slightly. "Aether…?"

Will moaned in pain and slightly turned, revealing a wound in her right shoulder and left foot. Aether placed her hands on Will's wounds, letting her shriek in pain.

"Stay away from her!" Cornelia yelled.

"Shut up, Corny!" Aether yelled back, enraging Cornelia, "You have no idea how serious these wounds are."

"Knock it off." Will yelled, before shrieking in pain.

"Stay still, Will. This'll take a couple of hours." Aether said.

"How did this happen?" Will asked, slowly.

"I think my Quintessence recognizes you, so it is drawn to you. However, you can't hold on to all that power. When you released it, you were slightly curled. Therefore, part of the electricity left through your shoulder and foot."

Will kept still, feeling how the electricity crackled over her body. Aether rose and started chanting in the same language that Will had heard her speak before.

"Why are you doing this?" Will asked. "Why are you saving me?"

"If you die, I die and none of this will happen, except that you stay dead.. It's as simple as that." Aether responded, briskly.

"That's not everything, is it?" Will whispered. "Deep down, you realize you still care. You still want to protect the people. That's why you let all the people get out of Heatherfield. You could've gotten us out and simply blew it up right then and there. You…still…care…"

Will rested her head on the ground. She didn't see Aether, but she was sure she heard a small drop of water fall on the ground.

"Of course not." Aether whispered back, but Will knew she wasn't speaking the truth. She could hear it in her voice.

…

_*06:15:26 until annihilation*_

Ignis had been chasing Taranee over the city for the past hours, putting Taranee on the defense. Ignis shot fireballs at Taranee at every opportunity she saw. Taranee created a shield every time. Ignis got closer.

"I'll show you something."

Ignis kicked her and Taranee crashed into a building, letting her fall to the ground. Taranee quickly recovered and looked up, trying to spot Ignis. She saw Ignis in a meditative state. Taranee saw this as her chance to get on the offensive. Taranee quickly got up and shot a fireball at Ignis. It was blocked by a simple shield. Ignis opened her eyes and stretched out one hand to the left. When she brought it down and to the right, lightning was generated.

"What?" Taranee exclaimed, "Quintessence?"

"No, just lightning, using fire to create a difference in heat, which causes lightning to be created." Ignis explained.

Ignis fired lightning at Taranee, who quickly jumped away. Taranee noticed the enormous crater it left behind. The sky turned blue again when more lightning was generated. Again, Taranee had to dodge. But if Ignis could do that…

Taranee did what Ignis had said, and she, too, generated lightning. However, it felt really restraining and it didn't feel right. She quickly unleashed it towards Ignis. Ignis quickly stretched her arm and caught Taranee's lightning in her hand, brought it to her other hand and then redirected it towards Taranee. Taranee tried to dodge, but she was too surprised. It hit her full on and then shot her back into rubble. Luckily for her, it was of her own power and not Ignis', for otherwise, she might've died on the spot.

"You fool. Simply because I can do something, doesn't mean you should do it as well! I was never meant to be able to do this! Did you feel the restraint? The pain? How it didn't feel right? I've managed to get that under control." Ignis said, "Now come on out. I can see you with my artificial eye."

*Last Agni Kai (Avatar Sound Track)*

Taranee, knowing her hiding trick wasn't going to work, quickly shot out and fired a stream of fire towards Ignis, who retaliated with the same. The streams clashed and both seemed just as strong. Each of them won on one side, letting the fire blast past both Ignis and Taranee. They didn't stop their streams, however, they increased power. Ignis' seemed concentrated, but wasn't struggling at all, unlike Taranee, who had problems holding a footing. The power of Ignis' flames was too strong for her. Taranee ended her stream and jumped to the side, the fire shooting past her. She could feel the intense heat. Taranee shot two fireballs at Ignis, then shot a bigger all from her foot. Ignis easily blocked all 3 of the shots with fireballs of her own, then jumped up and brought down a giant wave of fire. Taranee created a shield and tried to withstand the heat. The wave ended, but Taranee was heavily drained. Taranee shot a wave of fire at Ignis, who turned and opened her hands, blasting away the fire from Taranee. Taranee was panting, and Ignis saw her opportunity.

Ignis shot a blast of fire at Taranee, who dodged it by jumping aside. Ignis then came skating towards Taranee, who went to her back and started turning her feet, creating a ring of fire in all directions. Ignis jumped up, avoiding the fire and crashed down to earth, creating a massive blast of fire in a vicinity. Ignis seemed calm and collected, while Taranee was panting and seemed to lose her grip of the entire battle. Taranee was blasted away and hit a building. She quickly got up and started skating around, shooting fireballs at Ignis. Ignis countered by creating shields and trying to hit Taranee, but she was too fast. Ignis did the same manoeuvre Taranee had done before and fell to the ground, spinning her feet around, creating a ring of fire. Taranee was hit and crashed onto the ground. She tried to get up and Ignis slowly walked towards her. Taranee's hair bands were loose and her hair hung over her face. Taranee got up and shot a fireball at Ignis, before falling to her left knee. The crash onto the ground had left her right leg severely hurt. Ignis walked ever closer, simply catching the fireball and extinguishing it. Ignis extended her hand and created a green fire around Taranee. Taranee noticed how the oxygen around her was consumed by the fire. She looked around and saw the burning buildings and the black clouds hovering over the city. She realized that, despite their best efforts, the city wouldn't, couldn't be saved. They were just playing with them for the last hours of their lives. She couldn't do anything to stop them. But she would try anyway…

Taranee broke free, much to the surprise of Ignis and shot created lightning. She quickly fired it at Ignis, who was still awestruck by Taranee's quick revival. The lightning hit her full on and she was shot back into the rubble Taranee had been in before. Ignis quickly shot out of the rocks.

"Impressive. I didn't think you would still have been able to fight." Ignis said, admiration in her voice.

She then started to hover on jets of fire. Taranee was too tired to do anything. She had hoped that, due to the surprise, Ignis' guard was down enough to temporarily knock her out.

"You want lightning?" Ignis asked, her voice sounding colder than before.

Ignis created lightning, bigger than she had made before.

"I'll show you lightning."

Ignis pointed her fingers towards Taranee. And then…everything went black.

Ignis landed on the ground and walked over to Taranee. Taranee was knocked out. Ignis placed a hand on her and Taranee's body started to glow in a faint red colour. Ignis took her into her arms and walked towards the border.

…

_*05:45:19 until annihilation*_

Caleb and his future self hadn't actually done anything yet. They had just been standing there, taking each other in.

"So…" Caleb said, getting a raised eyebrow from his future self, "I guess we should, you know, fight."

Caleb's future self started to laugh. "Really? Do you think you can fight me? Me, with my experience? You just try." Caleb and his future self drew their swords.

*2 seconds later*

"Did you just unhand me?" Caleb asked, getting a nod.

"From behind. Without looking." His future self added.

Caleb's mouth fell open, but he quickly closed it.

"So, do you have any special questions in mind? After all, I know all about the future." His future self asked.

Caleb's eyes started to twinkle at this question.

"Who did you sleep with?"

His future self was stunned. "What makes you possibly think that I…?"

"I saw the way you looked. Seems like you…got there."

"Well, I…uhm…I…can't say that I didn't. And my god, for all the questions you could ask about the future, you ask who I slept with? Why?"

Caleb snapped his fingers. "Aha. So who was it?" Caleb completely ignored the last part of the questions.

"Take a wild guess."

"You…did 'it'…with Aether?" Caleb said, letting his future self smile a little. "You did! Oh my god! Wait, I just realized something."

Caleb's future self rose his eyebrow.

"Cornelia…I…" Caleb said, sounding sad.

"People often linger in the past, especially if something bad happened or if you lost someone dear to you. But sometimes, you have to let go. When a friend is in need of a laugh or a cry, you have to put your own problems aside and go help them. Which is what Aether needed. She had been sad and cold for all those years…She needed something joyful…" Caleb's future self said.

"Since when did you, I, get so…wise?"

"When age and experience hits you, these things tend to go naturally." The future Caleb said.

"So…how was it?" Caleb asked.

"I knew you'd ask that. You are a man. I'll just say that it was one of the best things to ever happen to me."

"And, Cornelia…? How about…?" Caleb asked.

"She'd understand. She, too, wished for Aether to be happy once more, as she said to me in her last moments. I had to make her happy before it all ended, at any cost. She'd be happy to have seen Aether happy."

Caleb sighed, a small smile on his face.

"Lately, I've been thinking. I think…"

"I know. I have too. Aether, Will, has that thing…which just makes you love her." Caleb's future self said, calmly. "Cornelia will be crushed, of course, but she'll get over it. Just don't rush it."

Caleb sighed. He felt a hand on his shoulder.

"Come with me to the border. The girls will be there soon. And on the way, you and I could take a bit about, you know, 'stuff'." His future self said with a wink.

Caleb smiled. "I'd like that."

Caleb redeemed his sword and together, they walked towards the border.

…

_*02:07:12 until annihilation*_

Hay-Lin dodged the gust of wind which was sent her way. She noticed how the wind dissolved the massive rock into small pebbles. This had been going on in this way for a few hours. Odor had been on a constant assault, apparently not tiring out at all, while Hay-Lin could only barely dodge most of the hits, but often enough she had been hit, wearing her out ever so slowly.

"I can't hold on much longer if she goes on like this." She panted, heavily out of air.

A gust got hold of her leg and she was pulled towards the ground. She hit the ground head on, and turned around, seeing her attacker.

Odor was floating around her air sphere, sometimes releasing tentacles of wind. Her face clearly showed anger.

She made punching moves, which made gusts of wind shoot at Hay-Lin, who continuously got hit. Odor fell to the ground and punched the ground, releasing the ball of wind and shot it in a slash around her. It swept hay-Lin off the ground and punched her into the rubble of a building. Odor wasn't finished yet, however. She created a small tornado, and shot it at the rubble, lifting it from the ground, revealing Hay-Lin within. Hay-Lin didn't seem to well, she was panting and had bruises everywhere. She was sucked off of the ground and couldn't resist. She kept twirling around in the vortex, until she was eventually pushed into a building. Hay-Lin crept towards the gap which had been made, as Odor flew towards her. Hay-Lin looked at Odor's face, clearly showing defeat. Odor took her up and then shot her to the ground. Hay-Lin got shot into the ground with such force, that a hole in her shape was created. Hay-Lin could barely breathe, her breathing rasping. Odor raised her hand and lifted Hay-Lin on her feet, while she landed in front of her. Odor kept punching Hay-Lin, empowered by strong gusts of wind which kept cutting through Hay-Lin's skin. Eventually, Odor shot Hay-Lin into the ground once more with a powerful punch. Odor created a large wind-sword and brought it above her head.

"Such a pity." Odor said, clearly angry, readying the wind-sword.

"NO!"

Odor got shot away and crashed into some rubble. She looked up, wondering what hit her, when she saw a panting Yan-Lin bent over a bleeding Hay-Lin, who seemed to have trouble breathing. Odor looked at her hands, pondering over what she had done. She looked up, seeing Hay-Lin, nearly choking in her own blood, while her grandmother desperately tried to keep her breathing. Both Napoleons looked at her, the younger with anger, the future one with sadness. Odor repented on what she had done. She had lost control to the power she possessed and had used it to bully her former, fragile, cheery self. Heck, she had nearly killed her. The cold nature she had adopted had been necessary, but had, as now depicted, clouded her vision. She wondered if it had happened to the others too, or if it would've happened, hadn't they tried to not only end the destruction of the world before it could happen, but also themselves. She had to redeem herself.

Odor got up and walked towards Hay-Lin. Odor used her powers to get all the blood out of Hay-Lin's breathing systems, and then used her powers to keep pressure on Hay-Lin's wounds, stopping the bleeding. Yan-Lin looked at Odor, who regretfully smiled at her. Odor lifted Hay-Lin from the ground and brought her to the edge of the barrier, Yan-Lin and the two Napoleons right behind her.

"Thank…you." Hay-Lin said weakly, letting Odor smile a little bit. Just a little bit.

…

_*00:50:19 until annihilation*_

Agua created another tentacle formation, after which she shot all of the tentacles towards a visibly tired Irma. Irma created a watershield in an attempt to defend herself, but due to her fatigue it didn't last too long. Agua's tentacles kept hitting the shield, until 2 eventually broke through it and hit Irma full on. The water twisted around her body and then hurled her into a building. Agua created spears of ice from her tentacles and shot them at Irma. Irma quickly turned them to water right before they would hit her.

Irma looked at Agua, who was seemingly concentrating heavily. She made a pushing like motion with her hands. Irma was dazzled. What was happening? Then she noticed the enormous wall of water was coming right for her. Irma couldn't bend such an enormous amount of water while so exhausted.

The wall of water crashed down on her, completely submerging her. Irma tried swimming to the surface, but she noticed the water currents spinning around her, creating a ball in which she was trapped. Irma created a ball of air in the ball of water by splitting the Oxygen-molecules from the Hydrogen-molecules, in which she could breathe.

Agua lifted the water sphere with Irma in it from the water and froze it. Agua let the wall of water return to the ocean and it disappeared, becoming the ocean once more. Agua walked towards the ball and looked at Irma, who was trying to resist, now that she only had to control a small amount.

"You are beaten. It is useless to resist."

Irma looked at her and shook her head.

"There is nothing you can do, Irma." Agua responded to Irma's stubbornness. "You can't break free. My control is much more powerful than yours."

Irma seemingly didn't listen and kept on searching for a weak spot in the armour that was the ice. Irma smiled, somehow worrying Agua. Suddenly, Irma pushed her fingers into the ice, revealing cracks, which completely stunned Agua. Was there a weak spot in the ice? Irma broke free of the ice and used it to create a ball of ice around Agua.

"Impressive. Most impressive." Agua said, only laughing when she easily broke free. "Mine may have a weak spot, but yours has much more."

Agua let a thick layer of water wrap itself around Irma, following the contours of Irma's body. She then froze it, only leaving a small area open around the mouth, making it so that Irma could breathe.

"Now, you can't move." Agua said, looking at the frozen Irma. "Now you are truly beaten."

Agua let Irma float and dragged her to the border.

…

Caleb, Taranee, Hay-Lin and Yan-Lin were already waiting behind the border. Yan-Lin and Caleb were nursing Hay-Lin. Irma could see them as she was tossed through the force field. She was thawed out by Taranee. Irma then rushed to Hay-Lin.

"What happened?"

"Odor took it a little to far." Yan-Lin said, the sadness in her voice clearly audible.

Irma took in the bruises and the wounds, which had made Hay-Lin's normally soft skin sore.

Irma turned around to see Odor, Ignis, Agua and the future Caleb behind the force field. Odor was clearly stressed and talking to Ignis, who took everything in with a hard face, while Agua talked with the future Caleb, while sometimes letting her view slide to Odor.

Crackling was heard and all the people present turned to see deeper inside the force field. Elyon and Cornelia appeared, with a barely conscious Will between them. Will was being carried by them, having her arms laying over the shoulders of each of them, respectively. Aether walked behind them, electricity crackling around her feet every time she moved. Will still had the marks of her lightning absorption, but they seemed healed. Cornelia and Elyon walked through the force field and lay Will on the ground. Will sat up and looked at Aether, who nodded.

_*00:00:03, 00:00:02, 00:00:01, 00:00:00. Commence Annihilation.*_

The Tablets of Air, Water, Fire and Earth shot a purple beam towards the Tablet of Quintessence, which absorbed them, then shot it into the ground. The purple beam crashed through the earth beneath the Tablet of Quintessence in a straight line, heading for the Sozanite. Upon contact, it sparked a chain reaction of explosions. Within mere seconds, everything within the force field was ripped apart and destroyed. The streets cracked open, releasing lava, the buildings crumbled down and the stones melted in the lava. Water vaporized. Trees burned down to ashes as the heat of the inner earth ran by. In but a few seconds, Heatherfield was only a shadow of what it was, and it became less of it every passing second.

The Guardians, Caleb and Yan-Lin were on the edge of the force field and witnessed it first hand. The white light that defined the explosions shone bright. As soon as the explosions stopped, the force field disappeared. Heatherfield was no more and a large crater was left behind in its place.

Everybody looked at the crater, dazzled at the sheer size of it. They also noticed that Odor, Ignis, Agua and Aether had disappeared within a white light. They had vanished, like thin air, dissolved into nothingness. For some reason, Will felt sad, while the others were uncomfortable about their memories of them.

"Don't blame us for what we have become, girls."

They looked up, seeing Aether walk up to them, seemingly floating on nothingness. Aether had a small glow around her.

"Aether?" Will asked, "But, you dissolved into nothingness!"

"That's true. My physical body has been destroyed." Aether responded.

"A ghost?" Taranee asked, but Aether shook her head.

"No. The Oracle has given me permission to talk to you one last time. To give you a warning." Aether replied.

"A warning?" Cornelia asked. "You just destroyed Heatherfield and saved the Earth. Wasn't it your _task_ to stop the threat the humans had brought about themselves?"

"Yes it was. However. We have only eliminated the threat of the destruction of Earth. We have _not_ warned the people of the threat they pose to themselves. You, Guardians, must protect the Earth from the threat that is, mankind. One day, mankind will do something stupid which will be a threat to the Earth itself. Save the Earth and bring about the message that we must change the way we live and think." Aether said.

"Couldn't you have done this?" Irma asked, "I mean, you've just saved Earth. Why not make that public?"

"Oh, I'm sure mankind would love to hear we've brought about lots of collateral damage to save the Earth. Also, the face that we come from the future is something they'd so very believe. I think the only part they'd believe is that the Sozanite could be a great energy source. And, of course, they'd use it, our warnings being made void and the Earth would still be doomed. Plus, we'd be send to a mental hospital." Aether replied.

Irma nodded. "Yeah, okay, that makes sense."

Aether sighed. "I'm sorry that it has to end this way. I wish I could've helped you. But, as it will be for everyone one day, my time has come to an end. My spirit will be laid to rest. But first…"

Aether took off her mask and threw it at Will. Will, instinctively brought her hands up to protect her face and as soon as the 'ghost' mask would've hit Will, it materialized. Will took it up and then looked at Aether. Her face was whole once again. If Will wouldn't have seen Aether's face once, Will would have believed it wouldn't have been deformed in the first place.

A white light appeared behind Aether. It seemed like a large hallway, with large doors at the end. Agua, Ignis and Odor were waiting at the front.

"And now, I must leave." Aether said, turning around, walking towards the rest.

The doors at the end of the hallway opened, revealing a silhouette of a woman with long hair, waiting for them. Agua, Ignis, Odor and Aether seemed surprised and happy. The woman waved for them to come. Agua, Ignis, Odor and Aether walked towards her and, in the distance, the Guardians could see them hugging the woman. The woman signed for them to come in. As they walked in, Aether turned around.

"Don't forget me…"

The doors then closed and the hallway disappeared, leaving only the wind and a view of the distant mountains in its place.

**[A/N] So, that was it. Only the Epilogue is next and then the story is done. Now, what did you think of this Final Battle? You don't know half the pain of having to write an air fight. It's really annoying to think off. Just imagine two people going at each other with gusts of wind. You can pretty much only throw people around and have the environment beat them up. **

**Also, to clarify why Odor went all mental: If you're angry, you most of the time don't have self control. So she couldn't stop herself. And as the cold person she is, she didn't really care at the time. Only when she realized she had nearly killed a person, her former cheery self, she was hit with regret and ponders if the others would one day lose control like this as well and would hurt those they care about. I hope that helps. And this has gone on for far to long. [A/N]**


	8. Epilogue

"And so, the city was destroyed, but Earth had been saved. The people were confused, of course, they didn't know the real reason for Heatherfield's destruction. Over the years, Heatherfield was rebuild in a near exact replica of its former self. And in the end, everything returned to normal and it was as if nothing had happened. But the people well remembered the destruction of Heatherfield."

"Wow, mom." The 8-year-old little girl, with the red hair and green eyes, said, amazed. "Everytime you tell me the story again, I feel the emotion in it, in me, grow. As if I'm somehow connected to it all."

The woman petted the girl on the head. "You wanted to be the villain, who was also the hero, so I used your name. Perhaps that way you connect more to the story."

Aether smiled and the door to her bedroom opened.

"Will!" a woman with long, blond hair said, "there's an emergency."

Will kissed Aether on the forehead. "Goodnight, Aether. See you in the morning."

"Goodnight." Aether said sleepily, as she turned to her left side and closed her eyes.

She heard the door close.

…

Aether heard the front door open. A whisper was heard from the living room. Aether shot up and saw a bright light coming though the small gap between the door and the floor. Aether went to the door and opened it slightly. She blinked a few times, for she could have sworn she had just seen a small blue thing, which had been floating in the air, absorb her mother and disappear. No, I had to be her imagination. She closed the door and sat on the ground in a meditative pose, trying to become calm again and regain her senses. Unknown to her, she was floating while she meditated and shortly before she would stop, she'd come down again.

She had to be calm if she were to succeed. She was planning on entering the forbidden chamber. Her mother had always disallowed her to enter the chamber, saying it was too dangerous for her in there, at least for now. But she had promised to tell and show what was behind that door when she was older.

This, naturally, sparked Aether's curiosity. She had, after deciding to enter the chamber (and building up the courage to actually do it), decided to go in this night, since an opportunity had arisen. She came out of her meditation, right after gently hitting the floor, and opened the door. There was nobody to be seen. She went into the hall and crept to the forbidden chamber. There it was…she almost felt the secrets and mysteries locked away behind that door, to forever be forgotten.

'_Mysteries and secrets aren't to be forgotten. They are to be found, studied and solved.'_ Aether thought, and with that in mind, she opened the door.

At least she tried to. She found the door locked. She silently cursed everything she knew and she wanted to scream all of those curses out loud. She forced her eyelids together and placed her hands against her head., not only cursing the locked door, but her own stupidity as well. How could she have been so _stupid_ to think that the door _wasn't _locked. It had been so predictable.

'_Perhaps it had been so predictable that no-one would have thought of it?'_ Aether thought optimistically, but she quickly dismissed it.

A small, blue light lit the insides of her eyelids for a moment, and when it had faded, she heard the shrieking of a badly oiled door opening, a sign of it not having been used in a long time. She opened her eyes and saw that the door had indeed opened. Aether was amazed, but didn't bother about thinking what had opened the door. That would be something to think about later. She blew some of her hair out of her face and, because she couldn't look at her hair, missed the small electric spark completely. She flipped the light switch and a small light lit up.

What lay beyond the door wasn't something extraordinary or something weird. At least, not for Aether. It all felt familiar to her.

"Objects." An amazed Aether whispered, "Objects from mom's stories."

She looked around and quickly found things she could name.

"Phobos' seeing sand…The Seal of Nerissa…The, at the time, Heart of Meridian…"

There were many more objects, some more she could name, some she couldn't. Objects of stories her mother hadn't told her yet.

She went through each one of them separately, wondering what they could be, what they once did and how they worked.

"Does she create stories around those objects? Or are these the objects of the stories? The…magical ones?" She wondered.

Such a question would seem odd to any other person, but seemed perfectly reasonable to her. After all, her mother could give commands to electrical appliances and they would always listen. Aether had always thought they had voice recognition, but her mother always smirked, shook her head and replied: 'magic'. Aether thought the voice recognition was the magic, but now, she wasn't so sure. She suddenly remembered the story of Nerissa, in which the Guardian Leader, whom her mother had called Will for convenience purposes, discovered she could talk to and understand electrical appliances.

'_Perhaps.'_ Aether thought, _'the Guardian Leader isn't as conveniently called Will as mother says.'_

But, if this was the case and her mother was magical, then that would mean…

"These items are real. Magical." Aether whispered, with a smile. "Wicked."

Aether's eye caught something. On the far end of the room, which seemed endless, there lay something, alone and slightly higher than the rest of the items. Aether walked over to it, A walk that seemed to be infinite. It was as if time had stopped and she would walk her until the end of time. But when it finally ended, and stood in front of the item, she gasped for air and clenched her hands over her mouth.

The mask.

If these were truly the magical items of her mother's stories, then this had to be the mask which had been given to the Guardian Leader by her future self. It was the item that had fascinated her the most.

So many times had she heard the story behind it, as it was Aether's favourite and she had sometimes even begged to her mother to tell the story. The mask of the one who carried her name, or perhaps the mask of the one whose name she carried, she suddenly realized.

She was so close to the object of her dreams, her fantasies, that she could touch it. And so, she did. She felt the grooves of the mask, which were cold, but it didn't bother Aether. She took the mask and studied it closely. It was all there, just as she had imagined. The marks, the opening for but one eye. Everything. And then she got the feeling that she wanted to wear it. She knew she shouldn't think that, as it was, surely, and object of utmost importance to her mother. But she couldn't resist the thought of actually wearing the object of her dreams, to see how Aether would have seen. So, she slowly placed the mask over her face.

As soon as it had been put on, Aether's right eye changed colour, from green to mahogany brown. She felt as if the fabric of time and space was torn apart and allowed somebody else to enter her bother, although not take control. Aether heard a whisper, which slowly became louder, from behind her. She turned and saw her shadow, which was large, as large as a full grown woman, apparently wearing robes, while Aether herself was in her pyjamas. Two eyes, located in the shadow's face, at the spot where the eyes of the woman would be, stared at her. The left eye was mahogany brown, while the right one was green.

From somewhere far away, yet at the same time very close, as the whisper grew stronger until it was clearly audible:

"_Don't forget me…"_

Aether was scared, yet also comforted by her shadow. She heard footsteps and both her and her shadow looked at the door. She took the mask and quickly placed it back on its standard. Her eyes returned to their normal colours and her shadow returned to the shadow of an 8-year-old girl in pyjama's.

She ran towards the door, while the hall suddenly didn't seem that long anymore, flipped the light switch, closed the door and ran towards her room. She jumped in her bed and with one last thought, she fell asleep:

"Mom will have a _loooooooooooot_ of explaining to do."

…

Will entered the room and flipped the light switch. She was in Guardian Form. She flew towards the mask. She noticed it had moved, ever so slightly. She carefully took the mask.

"Don't forget me." That line was stuck in her head.

She carefully placed the mask back in its original position.

"I will never forget you." Will whispered, thinking of her daughter, who had so obviously been here, and the line which had been stuck in her head slowly faded away.

Will went back to the door, and slowly closed it. Right before she flipped the light switch, she was sure she saw two eyes in her shadow. The shadow then turned to an 8-year-old girl in pyjamas and as Will smiled, the door fell shut behind her.

**[A/N] And with this, the story finally comes to an end. It has been fun, but every story has an ending. I hope you enjoyed it. Perhaps, one day, we will hear of Aether again. But for now…**

**Thanks for all your support and reviews. I will continue with the Dawn of The Nine Tails next. [A/N]**


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